Some taxpayers are furious over bailout

Tampa - Alicia Williams didn't hold back when sharing her opinion of the government's failed 700 Billion dollar bailout plan. "I think it's just a bunch of bull crap honestly. I mean it's just a waste of time. For us to be the taxpayers I feel as if there are other major issues that aren't even being addressed."

Michelle LaRose has some strong words about it too. "I say this is horrible and our economy is crashing and nobody's doing anything about it. Gas prices are at an all time high. There are no jobs available. No jobs whatsoever. The lawmakers are failing to see what's happening in the real world with real people, what are they going to do about it? That's the billion dollar question. Most democrats voted for the bailout. Most Republicans voted against it even despite warnings from President Bush and congressional leaders from both parties who warn the economy could take a nosedive without it.

Tampa Bay's 10 News asked University of South Florida economics professor Michael Loewy whether a government bailout can even work. He says "They're essentially rolling the same dice that these financial institutions rolled and hoping that whereas the financial institutions rolled craps the government won't."

Loewy says this isn't a first for the government. There was a bailout after the Great Depression in the 30's and then the savings and loan industry 20 years ago. "Ultimately we all sort of paid the bill. They just covered a bunch of defaulted securities. We had to hold the bag back in the 80's for the savings and loans. So it's not obvious we won't hold the bag but they're just betting that we won't."

He says while things are serious everyone needs to keep it in perspective. "Well most people are still working and most people are still buying things. Getting credit right now is tough because banks are jittery and there have been incidents in our country's history before and we managed to come through them sometimes with government intervention and sometimes without."

Loewy says don't lose sleep over the dip in the Dow either unless you plan to retire soon. "In terms of total points yeah it set a record in terms of the percentage. It's not even in the top ten so it's just short term noise. You can't really read much into it. If in a few days congress votes in something different it may jump up as much as it went down."

We wanted to know if the economy was in a depression or a recession and how can you tell? Loewy says our economy isn't in a recession or a depression. He says there's not really a difference between the two. He says a recession can be measured by looking at about 12 different variables over a period of several months.

He says it's ludicrous to compare the current state of the economy to the Great Depression. "It really has to do with having very slow economic growth over several, several years maybe 5, 6, 7 years below a certain trend measure of growth so we're nothing close to anything like that at all."

Meanwhile President Bush is huddling with his economic advisers about the next step. The house will reconvene on Thursday instead of adjourning for the year as planned. Monday's 777-point decline surpasses the 684-point drop on the first day of trading after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

There is a huge interest in the financial bailout bill that was rejected. Monday the house web site was overwhelmed by millions of people seeking information about it.

Jeff Ventura, spokesman for the house chief administrative officer, says there hasn't been so much demand since 2004 when the report of the 9/11 commission was posted on the site.