With Election Day drawing near, the Commerce Department reported Friday that worried consumers cut back on spending in October. Another study out at week's end found that almost one out of five homeowners with a mortgage owes more to their lender than their properties are worth. On Wall Street, the stock market shut the books on one of the most tumultuous months ever. Not all the news was bad for everyone. ExxonMobil's third-quarter earnings jumped to $15 billion, another record profit, and Wall Street bankers who took some of a $700 billion emergency taxpayer bailout forged ahead with plans to dole out billions in big bonuses. Senator Sanders told Air America Radio on Friday he'll introduce a bill to make sure "millionaire CEOs who brought us to the brink of financial ruin will not get one penny in bonuses."

Ban Bonuses Lawmakers are considering a ban on bonuses at firms that took part of a $700 billion Wall Street bailout. Sanders urged Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to ban bonuses for employees of the country's nine largest banks. He also called on Paulson to freeze dividends for investors in rescued financial institutions. Sanders made the case for the bonus bans and dividend freeze in a letter to Paulson. Year-end bonuses totaling more than $70 billion already have been budgeted, according to a report in Forbes, by Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and others. "The same people who created the financial crisis are in line to collectively reap billions of dollars while the middle class is left to pick up the tab," the senator told the treasury secretary. To read the story in Forbes, click here.

Cap Executive Pay In a letter to Senate colleagues, Sanders proposed capping compensation for executives of the rescued companies at no more than the salary paid to the president of the United States. "To force struggling Americans to pay for bonuses to millionaire Wall Street bankers who are responsible for the worst financial crises since the Great Depression would be an outrage and must not be allowed to happen," he said. When Congress approved a $700 billion package to bolster failing financial institutions, no one argued the money would pay bonuses that Forbes magazine said could total more than $70 billion and that, according to Time magazine, has some on Wall Street calling Uncle Sam their "Sugar Daddy." In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Sanders expressed frustration that the plan to buy illiquid assets has morphed into direct capital injections for healthy banks to acquire weaker rivals. "The goal seems to be changing every single day," he said. "Are we comfortable that a handful of bankers are literally alone in a room deciding which banks get what?" To read the Journal article, click here.

Sound Off "Please tell me this will not happen. Please tell me that all of my hard work, all of my faith, all of my trust in our government is not once again being held in such low esteem. I work so very hard," constituent from Huntington, Vermont wrote to Sanders about the bonuses. "That these companies can take billions from Uncle Sam (or should I say Joe the Taxpayer?) and then misappropriate it to the detriment of the United States is unbelievable," an Olympia, Washington reader added. "There should be no bonuses, and no dividends, until the money is repaid," another from Dorset, Vermont, wrote. Not everyone agreed. "I am strongly opposed to cutting the dividends that these banks pay out," argued a writer from Woodstock, Vermont. What do you think? To send an e-mail for us to post, click here. To take a survey on bonuses and other questions about the economy, click here.