What I sent to Mark Udall:

I encourage you to strongly oppose the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (EESA).

Section (e) Preventing Unjust Enrichment is not sufficient protection for the taxpayer dollar. Due to deregulation, the number of mergers and acquisitions over the past several years has been huge, and this section could exempt an unknown amount of worthless assets to be purchased by taxpayer dollars at a huge profit for the companies involved. As I understand it, this would for example exempt any assets now held by Bank of America that were acquired in the Merrill Lynch buyout.

Even were it not for this enormous loophole, I would oppose this section on the principle that the U.S. taxpayer should pay no more than market value - which may be far below the original cost of acquisition - for any assets or securities from a troubled institution. Offering to pay the original hyperinflated purchase price is simply unacceptable.

The U.S. government must restore trust in the market, and this does not mean throwing a bunch of cash at it; instead, it means that we must enact regulation that guarantees transparency by making all transaction data of public record and provides harsh punishments for the sort of fraud that caused this crisis.

Thank you,

Kris Nuttycombe