Call it what it is;
A Congressional Martial Law was declared in order to push the Senate bill for the $700 Billion dollar bailout through Congress.
Congress had to vote yes or no on a bill that they were not able to review or discuss. This bill could very well contain hundreds of pages of "small print" that they would have had no idea of what they were voting on. The government could easily have placed certain provisions in there that could affect each mortgage holder affected by this bailout. After 'tomorrow', the government will own many of our homes; or far worse im sure.
BTW- many people don't realize that this bailout is not just for American banks....banks from Switzerland, Germany, England, Hong Kong... will all benefit from this bailout. Those countries aren't assisting in this bailout, its just the U.S. Why should American taxpayers be the ONLY ones to pay banks from other countries because they purchased risky loans?
“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,” the original draft of the proposed bill says.
And with those words, the Treasury secretary — whoever that may be in a few months — will be with vested with perhaps the most incredible powers ever bestowed on one person over the economic and financial life of the nation. It is the financial equivalent of the
Patriot Act.
Treasury Secretary
Henry M. Paulson Jr.’s $700 billion proposal to bail out Wall Street is both the biggest rescue and the most amazing power grab in the history of the American economy.
The lack of transparency and oversight that got our financial system in trouble in the first place seems written directly into the proposed bill, known as
TARP, or the
Troubled Asset Relief Program.
Just take a look at the original draft:
“The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this act,” the proposed bill read when it was first presented to Congress,
“without regard to any other provision of law regarding public contracts.”
It goes on to say,
“Any funds expended for actions authorized by this Act, including the payment of administrative expenses, shall be deemed appropriated at the time of such expenditure.”
Slowly but surely, as new versions of the bill made the rounds in Washington, some legislators pressed to include new language to give them at least a modicum of oversight. Democrats have complained that the bill gives the Treasury Department “a blank check” — and they may be right.