http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0908/14015.html
According to this story, Paulson gets 350 billion upfront, not 700. It includes the insurance provisions the Republicans wanted. Unclear if ACORN was stripped.
“To help win the support of House Republicans, the deal also likely includes an option under which Paulson and future Treasury secretaries could choose to sell companies government-backed insurance to cover securities – thereby improving their value – rather than buy the assets as initially proposed.”
From your Politico article.
Again, if insurance is only an option for Paulson to choose,
the provision is a complete, utter joke.
Of course Paulson will not go for insurance. Ever. He already considered it. He said no. He will do so in the future.
This is not only a loophole, it is a blatant loophole.
Any Republican who touts getting this insurance provision should be laughed at, or suspected as a phony. It is nothing. No win. Nada. Even insulting.
The insurance provisions were intended as an alternative to the blank check framework.
Including the two together doesn’t help things.
This is one sample post I wrote yesterday:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2091271/posts
Friday, September 26, 2008 3:10:54 PM · 44 of 168
jveritas to dlt
The most practical solution should be as follow:
1. Cut the Paulsen money bailout by half of the current amount.
2. Enact most if not all of the Republicans bailout alternative.
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Gregg told Politico Friday that the Thursday compromise wouldn’t have come together so quickly if Democrats hadn't known that McCain was on his way. “We wouldn’t have had as much movement] as we did have, if he hadn’t come to town and some of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle wanted to upstage him,” Gregg said.
I meant — a lot of details in the article link you posted!