I don't know how I feel about this one. You gotta bail out companies, but there are going to be abuses, no doubt.
***UPDATE*** 11:11PM Democrats have begun to push back on the bailout plan offered by the Bush Administration, specifically with legislation that would cut the salaries of the CEO's whose firms participate in the bailout and by adding more oversight provisions. The Washington Post reports:
Congressional Democrats considering the Bush administration's emergency plan to shore up the U.S. financial system yesterday countered with their own demands, presenting draft legislation giving the government power to cut salaries of chief executives at firms that participate in the bailout and slash severance packages for their top management...
...Democrats sought to add oversight provisions and taxpayer protections to the proposal, which amounts to the largest government intervention in the private markets since the Great Depression. "We will not simply hand over a $700 billion blank check to Wall Street," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said in a statement.
Under the proposal drafted by House Democrats, the Treasury would be required to force faltering firms that want to sell their troubled assets to the government to "meet appropriate standards for executive compensation." Those standards would include a ban on incentives that encourage chief executives to take "inappropriate or excessive" risks, a mechanism to rescind bonuses paid for earnings that never materialize and limits on severance pay.
