The three key provisions: (1) The Treasury Secretary is authorized to buy up to $700 billion of any mortgage-related assets (so he can just transfer that amount to any corporations in exchange for their worthless or severely crippled "assets") [Sec. 6]; (2) The ceiling on the national debt is raised to $11.3 trillion to accommodate this scheme [Sec. 10]; and (3) best of all: "Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency" [Sec. 8].
Go on, read the draft yourself.
Put another way, this authorizes Hank Paulson to transfer $700 billion of taxpayer money to private industry in his sole discretion, and nobody has the right or ability to review or challenge any decision he makes.
Yet again, we have a national crisis under this administration. Yet again - congress is ushered into a briefing where they are told "this solution is the only solution. We have to work together to save the country."
And again - the Democrats march out to provide a veneer of respectability to another power grab.
Sec. Paulson (and therefore, the executive) will get sweeping new powers that cannot be reviewed by the court. They cannot even be reviewed by an executive agency - (which begs the question. Can Paulson's successor reverse his decisions?)
This is ridiculous. Yes, drastic action is needed - but handing new and unchecked powers to any administration is stupid. Giving them to one with a track record as bad as this one is beyond dangerous.
2 comments:
Please enjoy your $2366 in debt for every living human in America for this wealth transfer alone. I won't mention to total of $37,666. Ooops.
If you don't feel quite ill, the Prozac is working.
I wonder what it feels like personally controlling 700 billion with NO strings AT ALL. Congress, this is the U.S. calling, are we reaching?
Oh, and don't forgot that this includes bailing out foreign entities, or perhaps Paulson's Horse racing bets, maybe some largess to some McCain backers, big oil could use some help...
Talk about your bridge to nowhere.
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