One can write to one’s congress representative (Sam Farr in my case, who voted yes on HR 3997: see recorded votes on 9/29/08) or senator (Diane Feinstein) something like:

Dear Representative: Please kill the misnamed Paulson bill—a cloud of goody-good suggestions really— and replace it with a bill that helps those people for whom foreclosures are real catastrophes. Do not be fooled by the money-man’s muscle-showing in the case of Lehman’s and Washington Mutual. If one trillion dollars or so is needed to make up for deflated values of purchased homes, it must go to the initial accounts and lenders, and absolutely not to help the creators of derivatives. Also needed: to go back on the iniquitous bankruptcy law and afford better safety for the weakest and most at risk in this financial fiasco.