from Hilary Rosen at HuffPo:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hilary-rosen/did-john-mccain-help-main_b_130081.htmlWELL, for two days they demanded additional tax cuts so that banks and other institutions could buy up the bad assets rather than the government. Of course, that meant that they would also benefit from any increase in value to those assets. What? John McCain and the House Republicans wanted to add tax cuts for profitable businesses to a bailout bill??? Shocking, I know. That was too greedy even for Hank Paulsen who is used to being surrounded by a high level of greed.
Finally, in an effort to get a deal done, Paulsen and the Democrats agreed to the final McCain/House Republicans additions to the bill. They agreed to let the McCain club devise a way for the private sector to profit without getting additional tax cuts in the process. In other words, they could profit only once, not twice.
The legislation creates authority for a federally backed insurance program that would make the so called "bad" mortgage-related securities, salable to the private sector. How? By making them a good deal for them and reducing risk, obviously. The compromise reached would require Paulson to "establish" such an insurance alternative, but he is not compelled to use the insurance option.
Oh, by the way, the McCain/House Republican additions to the bill also include $3 billion to help small community banks (not their mortgage holders or depositors) take a deduction for losses from their investments in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, since taken over the government this summer.
John McCain went back to Washington to save main street from Wall Street. The problem is, his "main street" ran through a pig's trough. Will he take credit for that?