Bush Admin Faces Congressional Skeptics on $700B Wall St. Bailout

by via Democracy Now

Wed, Sep 24, 2008 7:30AM

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 :Both Democratic and Republican members of the Senate Banking Committee lambasted the Bush administration's proposed $700 billion dollar bailout plan Tuesday. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke repeatedly clashed with almost every senator on the committee, all of whom focused on Wall Street's culpability for the crisis. Many also brought up executive pay and emphasized the need for oversight of the Treasury.

Section 8 of Secretary Paulson’s bailout proposal explicitly denies any check on his powers. It says: “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.”

Paulson was defensive about this point in his opening statement to the committee Tuesday. He said he did not want to be presumptuous and include an oversight mechanism in the bailout plan.