Look, man, we gotta save the money. And who better to save money than more money?

Not that I can speak as a typical Republican, but both are equally distasteful to me.  For me, each one has its fatal flaw.  Big bailouts of banks and corporations is just propping up wealthy companies that deserve to suffer for their mistakes, but the argument can be made that if they all collapse it will financially hurt the little guy as well.  Socialism / entitlement spending has the perk of using money to actually help people with their lives, but it doesn't accrue anything but a false charitable feeling to the people supplying the majority of tax revenue.  Note to the people that say we should be helping people because [suffering is bad] [it's the right thing to do], I absolutely support giving help to people in need, but real charity comes from the individual to the person in need (or an organization they choose to do it), not government-extracted money they can then hand out as they see fit (whether to the poor man or bank executive).

As is often pointed out by Ron Paul (blessed be his name), the real tragedy of our current political system is that we have two candidates of the major parties essentially in agreement about what to do in this, and plenty of other, situations.  Where are the political voices condemning these bailouts, and where can citizens opposed to them cast their vote meaningfully?

I agree on the fairness issue, and I'm not sure how to rebalance it to work better.  My concern is that under a purely popular vote, candidates would be able to cater to the needs of certain parts of the country, earmarks and subsidies for California and New York and other city centers, while people in rural areas would still be controlled by it (and without the votes to do anything about it).  Like I said, I'm really not sure how you abolish the electoral college without addressing those concerns, but on a philosophical level I'm right with ya.