Federal Grants for Big Business – Social and Private Enterprise for Nonprofits

The proposed $700B bailout (buy-back, buy off, pay-back, choose your words) by the Bush administration and apparently the Democratic Congress irritates the tail off me. Enough of these J. Wellington Wimpys, the glutton whose famous quote is “I’d gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” J. Wellington was a cartoon character, in the Popeye the Sailor comics, as should so many of our wimpy, gluttonous leaders of business and politics.

For a look at what $700B looks like in things we can relate to see below.

I have a proposal for consideration.

We do not know the details of the bailout. The details change hourly. We do not know if the collapse, if there is to be one, will happen in a week or even this month. It all seems dire. Will the Bush administration orchestrate all the bailout before the nest president takes office?

But my cynicism says the rescuers and the rescuees have jointly brought all this on also. They have been the ones who have the Wimpy-syndrome:

The bailout sounds to me to be similar to line item grants for Wall Street and its sisters and brothers. Nonprofit organizations are encouraged to enter private enterprise or social enterprise to secure some funds and provide possible jobs for their constituents. No competitive RFP for Wall Street though.

We need some leaders. I will say what I mean about leaders for today after this quick item about Lee Iacocca. I am not an Iacocca fan, but he did one act that we need repeated.

Lee Iacocca was fired by the Ford Motor company in 1978 and hired almost immediately by Chrysler. Chrysler was a mess. Chrysler was near bankruptcy. Iacocca began aggressively closing plants and laying off employees. In 1979 Iacocca approached Congress for a massive (for those times loan) to rescue Chrysler. Congress did not approve the loan but did vote to guarantee the loan.

Iacocca announced he was reducing his salary from Chrysler to $1.00 a year.

Iacocca says currently at his own web site:

“It's not just elected leaders like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney either. It's many of the executives who occupy the top rungs of this country's corporate ladder. Your Kenneth Lays and Jeffrey Skillings and Dennis Kozlowskis - a few guys who took Michael Douglas' line in the movie Wall Street a little too seriously. "Greed is good," he said. These days, it seems more of our leaders believe that than ever before.”

From his book, Where Have All the Leaders Gone? Simon and Schuster, 2007

Another quote from the book is cited by Wikipedia:

“Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course." Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!”

In that light I have a prediction – almost no nonprofit organization will escape the problem of this economic crash. Some of the crashees provided some charitable funding. The Red Cross is seeking an influx of $150M from Congress.

So here is my plan: Give us a role model in leadership!

I call out to the so called leaders of today: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, Warren Buffet, George Bush, Henry Paulson, the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates, Bill Clinton, the CEOs of AIG, Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, Washington Mutual, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bank of America, Wachovia Bank, oil companies and all others who make at least $1M in salary and/or $2M in income per year to reduce their salaries and/or their income to $1 per year for 2 years. Salaries do not = income; whichever is largest or both.

OK, who’s first to stand up and take the pledge?

The income the leaders would have received during the 2 years would be dispersed to community foundations, United Ways and other larger oversight groups to provide funding as trustees for nonprofit organizations that are local, not only UW grantees, not national, and that have less than $10M a year budgets to provide increased needed services they are providing communities with low-paid staff and too few trained staff.

Part two of the plan, Congress will vote to receive for themselves and their families the same health benefits as people on Social Security and/or Supplemental Insurance Income for 24 months. The cost savings will go to the national debt.

Part three of the plan, all persons who are convicted as a cause of this current crisis will not go to prison at taxpayers cost. They will have every penny, houses, apartments, condos, furniture, cars, planes, clothes and all other tangible items taken from them to pay laid off employees.

Part four of the plan is that any package will not allow a parachute for any CEO and other high-placed COOs and other business officials with similar contract provisions caught in the bail out.

This plan may not solve the fiscal problems our country faces today. It may all be too simplistic and unrealistic to expect government, business and corporate leaders to be role models economically. But it does how some people can appear to be role models for our faith to be restored here.

I worry about all the furniture stores and their customers who bought furniture with no payment until 2011. And lots more.

A friend of ours, Sue Bannon, died recently after a long illness. One of the Sue–stories is about her statement to her parish minister following a Sunday sermon, “Well, I’ll bet you feel better getting that off your chest.”

Yep, Sue, I feel a little better. But I am still really angry. And I do not feel like a wimp.

Resources:

Grasping 700 billion http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2008/09/25/grasping-700-billion/

Lee Iacocca - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Iacocca

http://www.leeiacocca.com/

Red Cross Asks Congress for Millions in Storm Aid, September 16, 2008,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/15/AR2008091502875.html

CNN Money, Grave Threats, September 24, 2008 - http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/24/news/economy/bernanke_testimony/index.htm?postversion=2008092412

The Cohen Report, What the Financial Sector Meltdown Really Means for Nonprofits and Philanthropy, September 23, 2008, http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/cohenreport/2008/09/23/what-the-financial-sector-meltdown-really-means-for-nonprofits-and-philanthropy/

The effect of the U.S. economic problem on charities elsewhere: Company collapses hit charity income and volunteer support in UK from the Third Sector http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/News/DailyBulletin/847987/Company-collapses-hit-charity-income-volunteer-support/8256C0F94C80893050E1CF9F04D1E1BD/?DCMP=EMC-DailyBulletin

National Center for Social Entrepreneurs, http://www.missionmoneymatters.org/

The NPEnterprise Forum, Where Nonprofits Discuss Earned Income http://www.npenterprise.net/FAQ-Archive/faqarchive.htm

The Social Enterprise Alliance http://www.se-alliance.org/

J. Wellington Wimpy, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Wellington_Wimpy