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  We asked viewers what you think of the federal government's $700 billion bailout plan, for which talks broke down Thursday. Here are your responses:

It's nothing more than another "top down" plan that further benefits those that enjoyed years of fee income from trading in debt instruments that were worth far less than the rating agencies touted. How 'bout a "bottom-up" plan? It would cost far less to renegotiate mortgages at current market levels and at a rate that borrowers could afford to keep people in their homes. The gov't could take a 2nd position on the properties and share in any upside when the property is sold. Not gonna happen, though. Let's just throw billions (trillions) at the very people that designed this scam. --Ken Demski

What a joke! Who's coming to the rescue of the many everyday Americans who are in financial trouble? Where was 700 billion dollars when Katrina victims could have used the help? Our social security system needs bailing out, our schools need assistance, our helath care system needs help....let's bail out them as well. If the taxpayers are asked to foot this bill, then why don't they take $5 or $10 out of everyones paycheck (US population x $5 or $10) instead of asking each American for $5,000., then get any additional money that is needed from the ceos who got us into this mess! Take some money out of their retirement funds. Why does this burden solely lie on the hard working citizens who are struggling as it is to pay for food, gas, etc... Now they want to take more from us? I'll agree to pay $5 or $10, but let the big wigs fork out the rest. While we are at it, let's forgive 1/2 of every mortgage out there right now so the individual homeowner can re-invest in our economy by paying down or off their credit cards, buying low priced stocks. Maybe this would stimulate the economy. Wouldn't that be nice if half our mortgages were paid off by the gov't? Perhaps people could then stay in their homes, foreclosures would diminish, and the American people would have money again. The way things are going now, we're tapped out! Let the govt. forgive us of our over compensation....living beyond our means.....Isn't that what the govt. is doing for these financial institutions? Were they not greedy over the years? Isn't that greed what got them into this mess? Come on, fair is fair. p.s. -Thank you Katie Couric for showing us the real Sarah Palin! Boy did Katie make her look rediculous! What a joke... I could go on and on... --Andre

I think the government should bailout the home owners that are losing there homes in foreclosure first. After that if they are able to they can bail them out. If the government won't help home owners keep their homes, then I am against the bailout. --Vera Jones

I am not in favor of the bailout plan but I do understand the economics of needing it. However, to go through with it, I believe the following should be imposed so that this is a lot less likely to reoccur in the future: (1) Any company that takes advantage of it, their CEO/President (whoever has made the bad decisions to get their company in this bad position) should also face criminal charges. (2) As part of the criminal charges, they should be sentenced to a hard core jail for 25 years. No luxury prison. (3) They should also be stripped of their homes, luxury cars, boats, huge TVs, diamonds, etc. and be forced to live in an apartment that fits their needs when they get out of jail. (3 bedrooms if they have 2 children and nothing more.) All of the items confiscated should be used to help pay back the bailout and that money should be returned to the taxpayers who are the ones that are going to ultimately bail them out. (4) This also includes losing a pension if they currently have one with their current company. Let's set an example and teach a lesson!! Any common person who would mess up that big at their job they would be terminated immediately. The bottom line is that these people need to be held accountable for their actions and be taught just because they are executives they cannot reap the benefits when others are suffering for their losses. Washington also needs to focus here at home and treat are citzens as important. Just days ago, President Bush said the economy is flourishing and now all of a suddent they need this big bailout. --Cindy

Most Americas are not comfortable with the idea of handing over$700 billion to Congress. My solution: print the $700 billion (which is how the government will get that amount) then divide the $700 billion evenly among every citizen over the age of 18. One stipulation could be applied to each check: any mortgage currently in default would need to be repaid in full, immediately; that would put some money behind all the worthless paper that was sold to speculators. Then companies like AIG and others or Wall Street could then have their own "fire sale" to collect funds and figure out their own solutions to make their companies competitive or go bankrupt. They are, known for their creativity, are they not? Perhaps they would welcome some self imposed regulations after a little lesson in capitalism. Each citizen would be required to pay taxes right off the top, returning approx 25% to 30% of the $700 billion back to the Government, already this debt has been reduced by approx one quarter. Those citizens that made the choice to live outside their budgets would be required to use their funds to pay (in full) any mortgages debt that is currently in default or originated from the secondary mortgage market. With such a huge stimulus package, those of us that have chosen to live within our budgets could use the funds to spend America out of this mess . (Congress is already working on their own package) Everyone know how this works:..some Americans would save or invest their money (helping the financial institutions, public and private businesses), some of the baby boomers would retire (leaving job openings for our younger workers...helping unemployment numbers), some would buy cars, washing machines, make home repairs, start small businesses, pay for education (higher taxes for a life time for America), make capital improvements to existing small business, expand existing businesses and hire more employees. Also, some Americans would purchase (in full) their first homes or replace the home they have just lost. This glut of money dumped into the housing market would take it out of it's current slump, immediately. Pulling the prices back up from the current lows would also provide additional money to back the worthless paper Fannie and Freddie sold, we would not need to track the paper down and set its' value. Some Americans would buy new alternative/energy efficient cars or alternative energy products for their homes (sun, wind)....helping the auto industry and assist in our development of an alternative source of energy for America. Giving the money to the American people is "fair" to everyone involved and treats everyone equally, which happens to be the law. This solution maintains and boosts our capitalist economy and it protects the people least responsible but the most relied on to rectify the problem. Putting our "bailout" funds in the hands of any one group would only serve as a vehicle of corruption ("Newt Gingrich words") dividing the resources among Americans unleashes the vast talents and ingenuity that has made America the great country is it. Thank you and God bless America,
--Roxelyn Say

A $700 billion bailout plan would have been a little easier to swallow if we didn't already have billions being spent already in Iraq. --Shirley Martinez

The taxpayers are susposed to bailout companys that got greedy and CEO's that should have known what they were doing to inhanse their bonices. Now they notonly don't go to jail but they get to do it all over again. This is being pushed through too fast, something stinks. --George

I may be Naive but the bailout is only to save face for the Bush admin. It's not going to help the overall economy. You'll put money in the hands of the same people who blew it to begin with. The working and unemployed will still be in the same boat. So who is going to borrow from the banks and who's going to buy the goods to get the economy going again. Not those CEO's & Bankers. Make them sink or swim Help the working class who made this country what it is! Free --Anthony DeCaro

No bailout, 700B is not enough. Look at just Lehman Brothers, their liability on the books was close to 690Billion, and if this figure was leveraged, and their off balance sheet liabities show up, on a 40X leverage their liability alone would be 27.6 Trillion, just Lehman. The overall picture is easy to see as the Credit Default Swap market is 73 Trillion, of which the US is the dominant player, the problem here is that CDS(Credit Default Swaps), are options and they are out of the money, as most banks are in trouble and have defaulted on their paper, and their CDS are at play, so just on the CDS market the liability is 73 Trillion. Bernanke and Paulson want to buy toxic mortgages, well that is not going to help as most paper is in the form of derivatives that have no intrinsic value. During the Savings and Loan Crisis, all of the Mortgage Backed Securities that went through securitization had intrinsic value, meaning there was Real Estate(a building, home, etc, behind the security) under a CDS it is like an option no intrinsic value, but a bank is liable for the bet, and since most of the paper has collapsed all of the banks are on the hook for counter party risk. There's no way you can bail out this system as it is today, unless you get a complete audit of all these firms on the Credit Default Swaps that they are liable, once you put your hands on it, you need to find out which securities have intrinsic value(meaning the right to the asset), and which ones have no intrinsic value, and go from there, otherwise you are trying to salvage a system that has no cure in sight, unless you cure the problem first, which are the CDS. --Mario Caballero

The only way they can afford a bailout plan for the banks is to raise taxes. Haven't the goverment done enough with the economy in such bad shape. I say let the banks figure a way out of this themselves. I myself do not want to pay for this. --Sue Warso

Take that 700 billion and split it up among US citizens over the age of 21. Tax it, returning 30% to the goverment coffers. We can use the money to pay off credit debt, mortgages, student loans, and probably have money left over for gum or whatever you may want. THose who have been fiscally responsible would have more left over than those who weren't. That would stimulate the economy as well as take care of the mortgage/credit crisis. Another option might be to issue stock to taxpayers for the companies that they are bailing out. Some taxpayers may want to sell they're stock right away, some may hold on to it. Its they're money, it should be they're choice. Oh wait, we've spent more than that to bail out Iraq.....nevermind ;) --Jim Wenzel

The Corporate sponsored Neocons have been talking about deregulating everything. They deregulated the savings and loans during the Reagan administration, allowing them to make risky investments, and the U.S. middle class taxpayers were left holding the bag and had to bail them out while some ultra-rich fat cats quietly walked away with huge profits. Now the same thing has happened to the Wall Street investment banks. I'm tired of seeing CEOs walk away with millions even when they drive their companies into the groung and deprive tens of thousands of employees out of their jobs and their pensions. Let the rich people who profited most from this deregulation pay for the bailout instead of sticking it to the financially strapped and shrinking middle class!!!! --Jon Bletzer

No bail out! Because $700 billion just might be just a band aid and will not cure this. We will just have to suffer and live like the rest of the world. The words United States of America will be known as I,O,U. --Dan Cavazos

It's funny how we are in an economic crisis but we can continue to spend billions of dollars on wars and millions of dollars to pay CEO's salaries. How do these corporations let CEO's walk away with millions before the ish hit the fan? As long as we have greed and crooks running our corporations we will continue to suffer and pay more in taxes to bail out people with millions of dollars. The little people who can barely afford to keep track of their lives have to suffer the most by taking more of the little that we have. The poor stay poor and the rich get away with it all. Money is power and talks a good game. --Macho

How do we know that any of these people e-mailing opinions know anything about economy? They should identify the source of their knowledge. --Edward R. May, M.D.

What's wrong with this picture? My wife and I borrowed 70 thousand dollars from the bank. We had to disclose that we needed the money to complete a major addition on our house. The lender drew up and supplied the paperwork in order for us to borrow the money. It was well defined and outlined and they personally explained to us what our house was worth, how much our payments were, the penalties for missing payments, etc. The whole process to procure the loan took about 4 weeks. The paperwork was 26 pages long........ Last week the financial industry asked the American government for a "loan" of 700 billion dollars. The paperwork was drawn up by the borrowers. No appraisal of property was submitted. No repayment aspects were defined. No penalties were discussed or implied. They wanted the money within the next two days. The paperwork was 3 pages long...... --Mark Collins

I don't see that we have a choice. I think the bailout will happen whether we want it to or not. My biggest concern is that the 'golden parachutes' will simply continue, and poor performance by upper management will continue. This needs to stop! --D. Geron

Besides the fact that I feel bailing out big corporations with billions, nearly a trillion dollars of tax money is a bad idea in every aspect I can think of. Especially when the CEO's and top executives of these companies have already walked away with tens of millions of dollars in their own personal bank accounts of dirty money. Even with that, what I find more disturbing is the trend that the more Bush wants us to fear something in order to get us to do what he wants, it keeps turning out that doing the opposite would have been the better option. Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me. Let nature take it's course, let other big companies buy out these companies for nickles on the dollar. Let big business know that they are on their own to succeed or fail on their own. Make them be accountable for the large salaries and bonuses they feel they are entitled to. They certainly are NOT entitled to my tax money. --Yvette Kanady

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The middle class pays all of the taxes and the middle class is shrinking. Who will pay the taxes when there is no middle class. The middle class needs help, cut the tax breaks to the rich and the profitable companies, cut the tax incentives to the oil companies, cut executive obscene salaries and golden parachutes so that workers are NOT laid off and get some of the unemployed back to work. --Norbert Koscienski

there better be people held accountable these smarties had to of seen this coming for quite awhile-how many of these bad loans were given to illegal immigrants?if we didnt give all these billions of dollars to foreign countries maybe this wouldnt besuch a major problem --Brendan Tynan

A private citizen would not be given this bailout at the expense of someone else. If government bails out these companies, they should be the ones to repay the government, not tax payers. --Dawn Morgan

watch the way americans spend money,because the money are going towards other countries acconomies,because all buissnesses are owned by other coutries,the only reason i say that is because all pakastain,india,china,ect money goes towards their own banks from other countries.so all the money we are spending going right out the door towards other countries that own majority of our own american grounds.all the other countries are happy while we are fighting the war loosing all around life and time can not go back....fix our acconomy hole in the bottom of the bag(p.s.slick invasion of other countries buying us out of what are our own..  --Lorenzo Mitchell

I say a definite NO to this bailout. It is all smoke and mirrors. These guys w/all of their degrees from college don't know what they are doing. I am a single arent (w/a highschool degree),raised a child w/a chronic illness on a secretaries salary. I paid off my home, sent my son to college, never was late w/a bill (no child support/ financial help from my ex-husband). And, I retired at age 52. I am not rich, but I am doing better than most. These people in Washington look so confused;and I feel they are pulling a con. Send me to Washington and I can help put together an economic program to get us on a healthy economic path. But greed and stupidity would not play a part in my program. --Kathryn Stanek

I think that government should split the 700 billion,and the companies that will be getting half should be held accountable and have to pay interest back to government to receive it and the government tracks closely where the money is going and how its spent. somehow we need to get the money back into the economy so lets increase min wages and issue cks to go directly to US citizens to pay off debt and nothing else. --Bart

Why should we bail out the CEO's that created the problem and walked away with millions of dollars. I would agree with the bailout only if they go after the crooked CEO's who took all the risk to get higher bonuses and huge salaries and make them pay all the money back to the government --cgoetze

The government should lower the interest rate of everyone that has an interest rate above 4% down to 4%. That would allow most people the opportunity to keep their homes and pay off their own loans. This action would allow people to take ownership of their own debt. It would also allow for lenders to make a profit and even less loans would default. Lenders would not make as much profit, but the government would have less people to bail out, and that would allow the government to spend less taxpayer money to fix this problem. --Michael Olcese

Here is an idea, close all of them down, forgive debt and start all over, its just as crazy as the current plan, but helps the people who really need it, not wall street. --Trent

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