What if taxpayers were tax-incentivized to "opt into" a bailout personal investment?...

[Youphemism]

Disclaimer: I have a pretty negligible education in economics. This suggestion is based on my very limited view. But since I have that narrow vision, I can't really think of anything wrong with it, either.

What if they passed the current bailout measure but, as each financial institution failed, taxpayers could exercise options to buy a piece of that institution through the government?

What if, to make this an attractive thing to do:

Taxpayers didn't have to put down the money for those options until Tax Day -- maybe even spread that cost over the next few tax years.

Taxpayers received some percentage tax credit for every option they buy... For example a 10% credit so when you bought $1,000 in options against a specific bank bailout, you'd be credited with $100 on your 1040 form. (I have no idea what the actual percentage should be, of course.)

Things that seem good about a model like this are:

1. It gives taxpayers the option to try to make back some of the money the country has lost.

2. It would give people another vehicle for retirement investments -- since this would obviously be a longterm investment. The percentage rate of the tax credit could be balanced to both the investment risk and to make it attractive enough to taxpayers.

3. It provides a revenue stream to the government (as people buy shares) to actually fund at least part of the bailouts.

4. It creates a path to the institution being publicly owned again. (The republicans should love that part.)

5. It's deceptively easy. It doesn't affect the current bill. There's no front-end implementation work required on the part of the government. (The taxpayer places a buy order during a certain window after each institutional bailout is announced -- maybe even doing that through a broker. (The shares are actually bought on April 15th.)

Am I missing something? Doesn't this give us a chance to actually get something for our money while helping to fund this bailout, instead of just adding to the national debt?

In effect, the government would borrow money from us to save the banks, in return for a potential dividend.

There may be a place in this suggestion where the math breaks down, and I'm not seeing it.

This concludes my once-a-decade foray into the sausage-making world of economics. Thanks for humoring me.