It appears that the outline, at least, of the bailout legislation has been mostly agreed to. Powerline has a side-by-side comparison of the final outline with both the Paulson and Democratic proposals here. I’ve looked at the comparison, and I tend to agree with Powerline: “House Republicans negotiated on behalf of the taxpayers; without their resistance to the original deal that the White House and Congressional Democrats signed off on, the bailout unquestionably would have been worse.”
The question is, did the Republicans succeed in improving the legislation? I don’t know. I think the conventional wisdom is correct – something needs to be done, and quickly – but it should be the minimum necessary to free up the credit markets. I’m not sure this is the minimum necessary.
