ten billion butterfly sneezes

Unaccustomed as I am to citing anything from the New York Times, this post confirmed my nascent anti-bailout leanings. When an Administration official, like Ministry of the Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson writes on Sunday that:

Sec. 8. Review.
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.

and a scant two days later assures Congress that this bailout nonsense will require oversight, I’m left shaking my head.

Also from the blog post:

I’m not playing gotcha here. This is telling: if Paulson can’t be honest about what he himself sent to Congress — if he not only made an incredible power grab, but is now engaged in black-is-white claims that he didn’t — there is no reason to trust him on anything related to his bailout plan.

.

Indeed.

Congress, if you’re ever going to grow a pair, now is the time. It is not the time to lard up this bill with extensions for car loans, student loans, and credit card debt. The time is now for you to look this Administration in the eye and tell them to cram it. Just cram it.

-k-