Bailout Proposal Puts "Constitution At Risk"

[babylonsister]

Buyout Plan for Wall Street Is a Hard Sell on Capitol Hill

By MARK LANDLER and STEVEN LEE MYERS
Published: September 23, 2008


WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. received an angry and skeptical reception on Tuesday when he appeared before the Senate Banking Committee to ask Congress to promptly give him wide authority to rescue the nation’s financial system.

Mr. Paulson urged lawmakers “to enact this bill quickly and cleanly, and avoid slowing it down with other provisions that are unrelated or don’t have broad support.”

The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, who appeared with Mr. Paulson, said the financial system “continues to be very unpredictable, and very worrisome,” and that inaction could lead to a recession.

But after hours of back-and-forth, the committee’s leaders said explicitly what had seemed clear all day: that they rejected the administration’s plan. “What they have sent us is not acceptable,” the committee chairman, Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, told The Associated Press.

The panel’s ranking Republican agreed. “We have to look at some alternatives,” Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama told The A.P.

One after another throughout the session, senators from both parties said that, while they were prepared to move fast, they were far from ready to give the administration everything it wanted in its proposed $700 billion plan to buy up and hopefully resell troubled mortgage-backed securities.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/24/business/economy/24fannie.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[billyoc]

1. What there's left of it.

[babylonsister]

2. Well, there is that... nt

[Bluebear]

3. "So?" - Dick Cheney

[Eric J in MN]

4. It's the $700 billion which Bush wants most of all.

If Democrats give him the money but attach oversight clauses, then they are still caving to Bush.

[stillcool]

5. It looks like this time is different..

for now anyway. I don't remember this much push back by the newspapers or the republicans before. It must have something to do with their pockets.