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Paulson has reason to strut, and it's not just because he pushes around foreign governments and big bankers in his spare time, or that he has pictures of himself handling snakes decorating his office. The key reason he thinks he'll win this encounter with Congress is that this is one deal that really must get done. Last Thursday the great American credit panic of 2008 was on the verge of halting the country's financial circulatory system. Anyone with money to lend was hoarding it and big institutions were starting a run on the money market funds that...
...become a taffy pull between the Bush Administration and lawmakers from both parties. Many on Capitol Hill believe Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is seeking too much unregulated cash and power in his effort to stabilize the economy by buying up toxic mortgage-backed securities. He's also asking Congress to lift the ceiling on the national debt to a record $11.3 trillion from the current $10.6 trillion, which could weaken the U.S. dollar, raise interest rates and act as an additional drag on the economy. All that money has led to lots of questions from lawmakers and taxpayers alike. Here...
...government will hire experts to determine their value, but because so many are "sliced and diced" concoctions - made up of pieces of literally thousands of mortgages created and peddled and pushed together by Wall Street - the soundness of the underlying loans will prove difficult to ascertain. Many members of Congress want to make sure the government pays fire-sale prices for the assets to protect taxpayers from a big loss, but Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has said that too low a price could hamper the plan's effectiveness at stabilizing the markets...
...money for them. On the other hand, the Treasury initially asked for a virtual blank check in how it would conduct the bailout, including guarantees that no court or other monitors could second-guess their actions. That provision, not surprisingly, has became a major bone of contention in Congress, and it now appears increasingly likely that some form of oversight will be written into the legislation...
Henry Paulson is a very confident guy. Sitting in his office Wednesday morning before heading up for a second day of grilling in front of skeptical members of Congress, the Treasury Secretary seemed certain he'd get the massive new powers and huge sums of money he's asking for, despite the feverish horsetrading and recriminations still unfolding on the Hill. "I believe we're going to get a bill that works and a clean bill," he told TIME. "It certainly won't be exactly what we asked for, it never is, but it's got to be sufficient...