The following is an expanded copy of a letter I emailed to President Bush earlier today.
 
If you want voters to support a bailout you should change it so general taxpayers don't have to pay for it.  Taxpayers didn't cause the problem.   Greedy executives did.  Greedy bankers were so anxious to get richer that they made loans they shouldn't have made.

Any bailout payment should take the form of negotiable federal securities rather than cash.   The bailout program should be separate from the general budget. 

Securities would be paid off by mortgage payments, sale of foreclosed homes etc. plus special taxes on business.  One such tax could apply to money spent on executive salaries above some amount, for example $200,000 per year. The tax would be assessed even if the company not have a taxable income.   Another tax could apply to certain financial transactions or upon the income of financial institutions, etc. A tax on short term capital gains would be appropriate.  These taxes could be set to expire whenever sufficient funds were accumulated to pay off the securities.

This payment approach would force the people who caused the problem to pay to correct it.   Those who tried to buy homes they couldn't really afford would pay part of the money for the bailout.  Sale of  the bad assets would convert them to cash to pay for the bailout.  The companies that failed because of the credit crisis in some cases purchased bad assets from companies that remain profitable because they unloaded the bad assets they created. Thus it would be fair to force the companies that  didn't fail to pay part of the cost of  the bailout.  High salaries by other companies forced the failed companies to pay higher salaries than they should have paid.  Thus it would be fair to require all companies that pay high salaries to help pay for the bailout.

Only a small portion of the U.S. population caused the credit crisis.  They shouldn't expect  those who didn't contribute to the problem to bail them out.  Creditors have been exploiting people for years by charging excessive interest and fees.  Now that they are in trouble they want someone else to force those they have exploited to pay for their mistakes.