The Administration is proposing to commit up to a trillion dollars in taxpayer money and give complete discretion -- expressly removed even from judicial review -- to the Bush Administration as to how it performs this socialization of large portions of U.S. financial markets.

Whatever its economic merits -- and they appear to be quite poor -- this is an unacceptable outrage in a democratic republic.

There has never been a lamer duck than George W. Bush.  His invisibility during the late fiscal crisis recalls his furtive behavior right after 9/11, yet he does not have the excuse of needing to protect himself from possible physical harm this time.

The current mess seems to be further that the ideology that has dominated this country since Ronald Reagan's Administration has failed miserably.  And yet the Administration that asks for blank-check authority to respond to the disaster itself is a creature of a particularly inflexible version of that ideology.  Even if they are acting in good faith -- despite a long track record of running every aspect of the government to further narrow political agendas -- they cannot be trusted even to be competent.
 
I don't profess to have any insight worth your time about how to stabilize U.S. financial markets.

But I do profess to have some understanding of the Constitution and of the system of popular sovereignty it establishes.   And it is contrary to that system to the Constitution's vision for an plan that will effect generations of American's to be made over a few days, with representatives of a lame duck Administration -- whose vision of government has failed in every way -- essentially blackmailing members of Congress into a plan that asks every American taxpayer (and though John McCain doesn't understand this, that means all of us) to bail out private companies that

And one principle that should guide Congress's response to this crisis -- and that of both presidential candidates -- is that the American people should have some say in the matter.  And given that pretty much every major issue that this Administration has touched has turned out disastrously, it would be profoundly wrong to let this Administration saddle out grandchildren with crippling debt, without having an open debate, and a national vote, about what the basic countours of the rescue policy should be, and who should lead us out of it.

Congress should not give this Administration any more authority than is required to keep things afloat until November; then it should work closely with the November 4 winner on a long-term solution, to be signed into law by the next President.