What Happened Last Time
In 2008, Wall Street crashed the economy. We bailed them out with $700 billion in public money. Not one major executive went to prison. The people who caused the collapse designed the recovery — and they designed it to benefit themselves. The stock market doubled. Wages stayed flat for a decade.
People went to jail for stealing bread. Executives who wrecked the global economy got bonuses and kept their jobs. Many are still in the system today, building the same kind of products that caused the last crash.
Three Rules
1. Executives Pay First
Before any public money flows, the people who ran the company put their own money on the table. Five years of executive pay gets clawed back. Personal assets are pledged before taxpayer funds are used. The Department of Justice reviews for fraud. No bailout money goes toward executive compensation during the rescue.
This isn’t punishment. It’s the cost of doing business. They took the risks. They collected the bonuses. They absorbed the upside for years. Now they absorb the first round of downside.
2. Convert to F-Corp — or Go Bankrupt
Any company that wants a taxpayer bailout converts to an F Corporation. No exceptions. No negotiations. Convert or fail.
This type of corporation doesn’t exist yet. It’s an idea I have that can start to right the wrongs pushed on us over the last 50 years. Here’s how it works.
An F Corporation operates under different rules: 50% tax on profits kept in the company, but dividends paid out to shareholders become tax-deductible. That creates a massive reason to share the wealth instead of hoarding it. Once converted, the company can never go back to a regular corporation. It stays an F-Corp permanently.
The goal isn’t saving the company as a trophy for its shareholders. The goal is keeping the lights on, the supply chains moving, the jobs running. The corporate shell can go bankrupt. The function continues under new rules that benefit the people who paid for the rescue.
Nobody is forced to convert. But if a company wants the public safety net, it operates under rules that benefit the public. That’s the deal.
And F-Corp shouldn’t just exist as a consequence. The option should be available now — for any company that wants to switch voluntarily. Some businesses already want to share more with their workers and communities but the current tax code punishes them for it. F-Corp fixes that. The more companies that convert before a crisis, the stronger the economy is when the storm hits. The bailout trigger is the stick. But the tax structure is the carrot — and it should be on the table today.
3. Bridge Payments for People — Not Companies
Here’s the honest truth: when portfolios collapse, the government can’t restore trillions in lost value. Anyone who promises otherwise is lying.
But we can provide a bridge. During COVID, direct payments kept families and small businesses afloat during the worst of it. The same idea applies here: money goes directly to people — not to restore wealth, but to survive the transition. Twelve months of runway while the economy rebuilds.
But unlike COVID, the payments can’t just go out the door while companies raise prices to swallow them. That’s what happened last time — record profits while families spent their stimulus checks on groceries that cost 30% more. Bridge payments have to come with price controls during the emergency, IRS audits on companies posting windfall profits, and an excess profits tax that claws back crisis-driven gains. The money goes to people. It stays with people.
The companies that caused the crisis convert or fail. The people who got caught in it get help. And the companies that try to profit off the disaster pay it back.
From Emergency to Permanent
We did emergency payments during COVID. We’d do them again in a crash. At what point do we stop pretending these are emergencies and build the floor permanently?
The crisis becomes the proof. When millions of Americans get bridge payments and the economy doesn’t collapse — when people use that runway to retrain, start businesses, take care of family — we’ll have shown what a Universal Basic Income can do.
UBI isn’t charity. It’s the floor that makes taking a risk worth it again. With a guaranteed foundation, starting a business or going back to school becomes an actual option instead of something only people with money can afford.
What It Takes
I’m one person running for one seat. This proposal needs to pass the full Congress and be signed by the President. That’s a lot of heavy lifting. I can’t do it alone.
But someone has to say it first. Someone has to put the framework on the table. The PACT Act — healthcare for veterans exposed to burn pits — didn’t pass because Jon Stewart was famous. It passed because he named the problem clearly, and then veterans carried that message to every senator’s home district. The spotlight plus the grassroots pressure became impossible to ignore.
If this stays in Florida 3, it dies. If it spreads — if people in other districts start asking their representatives where they stand on conditional bailouts — then we’re not talking about one congressman anymore.