Nancy Pelosi Puts Lipstick on a $700 Billion Pig

I understand Democrats have concluded they have to do something to bail out Wall Street before Wall Street's impending crash freezes credit and devastates Main Street. They have to do something and hope it works.


But given the compromises they accepted from Republicans and Secretary Paulson (or imposed on themselves -- e.g., giving up on bankruptcy protection), there's no excuse for cheering for this pig of a bailout or making claims that aren't justified.


Speaker Pelosi has released a summary of the bailout package, and you can view it here. Several components are improvements over the original Paulson plan.



But since many economists view the changes as half remedies at best, or at worst unworkable fixes focused on the wrong problem, it's troubling to see Pelosi exaggerating the merits and the limited protection it provides.