Paulson vs. Dodd

As you know, Henry Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury, has called for Congress to give $700 billion to bailout financial institutions that have failed. They are debating it today, and probably for a day or so, I suppose. With $700 billion I think they probably out to debate it for a day or so.

Sen. Chris Dodd, chairman of the Banking Committee, has put together a counter proposal, which is finding a lot of support. Paul Krugman likes it, for example. And so does Ian Welsh at Firedoglake.

Bill Murchison over at Townhall is opposed even to the Paulson plan, and would presumably be horrified by the Dodd plan. He's opposed to government getting involved in economic issues at all.

The human craving to lay hands on a problem and twist it here and there is immutable. The political expression of that craving frequently has malign consequences.

OK, I'm not sure what humans Murchison is talking about here. I think humans like to solve problems not simply twist them here and there. If you see your economy going down in flames, well, you want to fix things so that the economy gets back on an even keel.

Rush Limbaugh had heard of the Dodd plan, and has a simple solution.

What we want is change. Change the chairman of the banking committees in Congress, get rid of Chris Dodd and Barney Frank. They are a disgrace. They are lying about their roles in all of this. They shouldn't be anywhere near addressing this problem now. They should resign from their posts. And the Republicans ought to demand it day in and day out.

Nice. But then in Rush's world pretty much everything is the Democrats fault; presumably he'd like if it all Democratic public officials resigned.

Anyway should be an interesting week, economically speaking.