The GOP's joke of a plan.

Time's Justin Fox on the House Republican's alternative to the bailout:

One, that of the House Republican Study Committee, seems to be a joke. It calls for a two-year suspension of the capital gains tax to "encourag[e] corporations to sell unwanted assets." But the toxic mortgage securities clogging up bank balance sheets are worth less now than when they were acquired. Meaning that no capital gains tax would be owed on them anyway. If you repealed the tax, banks would have even less incentive to sell them because they wouldn't be able use the losses to offset capital gains elsewhere. Seriously, where do these people come up with this stuff?

The other problem would be that removing capital gains taxes for two years would have an enormous negative impact on government tax receipts which, you know, we need to pay for things like the war and all. Capital gains tax receipts vary based on how the economy is doing, but in the past few years have been between $50-120 billion annually. Looking at it conservatively, the GOP plan would cost at least $100 billion in lost tax revenue, while doing nothing to address the problem.