The administration admits they are railroading congress, again.
White House Dispatches Team to Push Economic Bill
The White House today is drumming up extraordinary pressure on Congress to approve its plan to enact a $700 billion mortgage bailout fund, suggesting the markets cannot wait much longer and dispatching Vice President Cheney and other top officials up Pennsylvania Avenue to jawbone lawmakers.
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[White House Deputy Press Secretary Tony] Fratto said it would be "unthinkable" for Congress not to pass legislation this week, asserting the result would be a "very, very serious situation" for the U.S. economy.
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Fratto insisted that the plan was not slapped together and had been drawn up as a contingency over previous months and weeks by administration officials. He acknowledged lawmakers were getting only days to peruse it, but he said this should be enough.
Since the White House has been planning this bailout for months, why wasn't congress consulted about the particulars?
Related questions. Why isn't there discussion of a new Independent Counsel law? Why isn't the Attorney General investigating a fraud so massive that it could potentially destroy the financial markets?
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Don't miss 99 Percent Pure's comment below which includes this interesting news:
Paulson Debt Plan May Benefit Mostly Goldman, Morgan (Update2)
By Jody Shenn
Sept. 22 (Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley may be among the biggest beneficiaries of the $700 billion U.S. plan to buy assets from financial companies while many banks see limited aid, according to Bank of America Corp.
``Its benefits, in its current form, will be largely limited to investment banks and other banks that have aggressively written down the value of their holdings and have already recognized the attendant capital impairment,'' Jeffrey Rosenberg, Bank of America's head of credit strategy research, wrote in a report dated yesterday, without identifying particular banks.
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First edit to remove my remarkably unpopular suggestion that an impartial Catastrophe Tsar be appointed, maybe it is a bad idea. Regardless, whoever oversees this give-away simply must be honest and accountable.
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Digg link.