Democrats skeptical about handing out free money to Wall Street

Perhaps by accident or maybe on purpose, Democrats have seemingly decided that the plan laid out by Treasury Secretary Paulson and the Bush Administration this weekend isn't a very good one. What made them come to that conclusion is as of yet unknown. Perhaps the plan's provision to leave $700 billion in unmarked, non-sequential bills in a briefcase in Battery Park was a red flag. That combined with the no-oversight, no-legal action, Paulson can do whatever he wants with the money, money for Wall Street/fuck Main Street, shut up and like it parts of the plan seem to be worrying. Not to mention the whole plan seems to rest on the fact that the crisis is one of financial liquidity and everything will be solved if the taxpayer pays 'fair' price for worthless shit it then gets the privilege of trying to sell.

Most of this weekend was consumed by serious people looking at this plan and going "Seriously?" and then incredulously saying "There's no way the Democrats can let this happen, can they?" evidently forgetting which party they were talking about. The Center For American Progress and Paul Krugman of the NYT were the most vocal "no deal" proponent and he's has spelled out exactly why the deal stinks over and over again on his blog and in his columns.

For some reason the Democrats looked at all of this and have started to voice their opinion, meekly, that perhaps a blank check with no oversight shouldn't be written to the crooks who fucked up in the first place, that buying worthless shit and wishing everything fixed isn't a great plan, and perhaps $700 billion worth of complete freedom shouldn't be given to Paulson, a man who for the past couple of months has been calling the crisis contained. Democrats have decoded to broach the possibility of adding a few things to the bill, like namely oversight provisions and taxpayer protections.

Also provisions regarding cutting the salaries and bonus pay to the leadership of any company who takes up the free money offer. This came after it was learned that the Lehman Brothers people who bungled their way into to collapse are getting a $2.5 billion bonus package from Barclay's, the company that is sifting through their wreckage. Democrats are also talking about the novel idea of financial relief for distressed homeowners, outraging toads like John Boehner who were out in force yelling "Wall Street only" this weekend on the TV.

Now this is all contingent on the Democrats having successfully designed and developed a spine in some sort of secret lab. Whether or not it will hold up in its rollout this week is anyone's guess. It could buckle and shatter, like so many previous versions, the next time George Bush demands that Congress act immediately to give him the thing he asked for exactly as he worded it. So it remains to be seen what we're stuck with: a completely awful plan or a mildly awful plan.