One Man's Vast Is Another Man's Half-Vast
September 21, 2008
$700 Billion Is Sought for Wall Street in Vast Bailout
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration on Saturday formally proposed a vast bailout of financial institutions in the United States, requesting unfettered authority for the Treasury Department to buy up to $700 billion in distressed mortgage-related assets from the private firms.
The proposal, not quite three pages long, was stunning for its stark simplicity. It would raise the national debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion. And it would place no restrictions on the administration other than requiring semiannual reports to Congress, granting the Treasury secretary unprecedented power to buy and resell mortgage debt.
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"Over time," our president assures us, "we're going to get a lot of the money back."
Try taking a statement like that to your personal bank and see how pleased he is to know that he'll one day get a l…