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http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/09/fair_effective_graphic.html

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/09/handle_with_care.html

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s initial proposal for the giant Wall Street bailout would have given him, as secretary of the Treasury, the personal authority to spend $700 billion of taxpayers’ money to buy troubled financial assets on any terms he saw fit. He would then be authorized to sell these assets, also without limitation. Under his proposal, his actions are explicitly exempted from review by any court or administrative body.

Congress appears to be moving Paulson off these extreme terms, but any final deal should rest meaningful control, true decision-making authority, not in one person and certainly not with the secretary of the Treasury of an administration that, in large part, authored this crisis. Paulson along with the rest of the Bush economic policy apparatus—and in fact all of those who are ideologically resistant to a role ...