$15,000 for each American taxpayer

I ran across a staggering post at reason.com today:  It references another article that tallies up our government’s attempts to “save” the economy:

 

$29 billion for Bear Stearns

$143.8 billion for AIG (thus far, it keeps growing)

$100 billion for Fannie Mae

$100 billion for Freddie Mac

$700 billion for Wall Street, including Bank of America (Merrill Lynch), Citigroup, JP Morgan (WaMu), Wells Fargo (Wachovia), Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, and a lot more

$25 billion for The Big Three in Detroit

$8 billion for IndyMac

$150 billion stimulus package (from January)

$50 billion for money market funds

$138 billion for Lehman Bros. (post bankruptcy) through JP Morgan

$620 billion for general currency swaps from the Fed

Rough total: $2,063,800,000,000

 

The top 25% of income earners will foot 86.27% of this bill.  Leaving $283,359,974,000 for the rest of us, which is on average $2,698.66 per taxpayer earning less  $64,702 a year.

Keep in mind AIG spent $440,000 on spa treatments for executives with their bailout money.

For $2,698.66, I could have had one hell of a spa treatment for myself.