"Mirabile Dictu! Congress is Mad at Paulson for Lying!" Yves Smith (Naked Capitalism)

[zazen]

It is remarkable (and admittedly late, but late is better than never) that Congress is developing a spine and pushing back at Hank Paulson's unprecedented land grab. Even better they got mad at something that made your humble blogger nuts. Trust me, I am highly confident that no Congressional aide picked up on the issue via this blog, but you did have to be paying attention to catch Paulson's dishonesty, and to their credit, they took notice.

Of course, this is all part of a larger Kabuki drama. Paulson is insisting that Congress release the remaining $350 billion of the now-misnamed Troubled Assets Repurchase Program so he can hand out more cash to his industry buddies. Congress will be damned if it gives Treasury any more money, given that the funds have so clearly been dispensed with no controls to favored parties. But since they don't dare say the taxpayer has been ripped off (that would call their judgment into question for acquiescing to the hastily drafted and aggressively sold TARP), they will pound on Treasury as many ways as they can. . . .


Either way you cut this, it's a lie. Either Paulson let his intentions be misrepresented via his silence, or he is now falsely claiming to have changed direction earlier than he did. Nouriel Roubini has claimed that Treasury was resisting the idea of of inserting language that would allow for capital injections into banks but that some members of Congress thought it was necessary, and put statements into the Congressional record via floor debates to allow for that interpretation. Roubini further contends that Paulson changed his mind only as a result of the adverse market reaction after the bill was signed.

But if Roubini is wrong and Paulson's statement is accurate, it is still completely in keeping with the conduct of an Administration that told the public that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The bill was drafted to be extraordinarily vague and sweeping, and yet did not clearly give Paulson the authority he now says he realized back then that he needed while it was still being renegotiated.

[Demeter]

1. The Last Refuge of Scoundrels, And the Last BushCo Scoundrel Shall Find No Refuge

This is VERY important!

[psychmommy]

2. i took great pleasure watching kucinich committee on cspan.

i wanna smack that smug little sob saks graduate right upside his smug little head.
it did make me realize how much i missed having a real congress, really working. i feel like change is already starting baby. go get 'em dennis, we're listening.