I can't take credit for this commentary, but I am thrilled someone had the time to put forth the effort to put it into layman's words. Everything below this point is from someone else, with permission:
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I don't know what you think about the bill, but I have actually read a lot of it. Every American should read this and send it to as many people as possible. Here is most of the first ten pages unedited, with my own cliff notes in bold:
I was tired by writing this so excuse any mistakes in spelling, etc. I stayed up llate last night to analyze this bill. [My notes are in Brackets and
Bold]
Here is the actual PDF of the bill from Nancy Polosi's weblog:
http://www.speaker.gov/pdf/AYO08C04_xml515pm.pdf
Here is the synopsis of the bill (from page 1):
To provide authority for the Federal Government to purchase
and insure certain types of troubled assets for the purposes
of providing stability to and preventing disruption
in the economy and financial system and protecting taxpayers,
and for other purposes.
[Note: "for other purposes."]
1 SEC. 2. PURPOSES (from page 3)
.
2 The purposes of this Act are?
3 (1) to immediately provide authority and facili-
4 ties that the Secretary of the Treasury can use to
5 restore liquidity and stability to the financial system
6 of the United States; and
[This is an unprecedented authority that basically gives the Secretary of Treasury complete control over the entire economy]
7 (2) to ensure that such authority and such fa-
8 cilities are used in a manner that?
9 (A) protects home values, college funds, re-
10 tirement accounts, and life savings;
[The reason our economy is in trouble is because home values are already too high. A home used to cost $40,000 that could now sell for $400,000. Colleges that cost 4,000 now cost 40,000. These are the main reasons for the economic problems of today. In a free supply and demand economy, as the price of colleges skyrocketed, less people would've been able to afford it. This would have allowed college prices to adjust back to what is affordable and reasonable. Instead, student loans were given out freely to whomever wanted them. This increased the amount of goods the people were able to afford artificially, and thus increased the ability to demand an insanely expensive education. When the ability to demand these educations increased so did the price. This same thing happened with home values. The only reason homes were ever $200,000, is because instead of buying less homes and allowing the market to adjust, people bought more homes at higher values for the last 40 years which caused the prices to skyrocket. Without credit, less homes would have been sold overall, and the price for a nice home would still only be $40,000.
Therefore by protecting the values of our homes, this bill ensures that the market will never adjust correctly. Therefore, and for this reason alone, this bill if passed essentially marks the end of free market capitalism economics.]
11 (B) preserves homeownership and pro12
motes jobs and economic growth;
[Sure sounds like a great bill!]
13 (C) maximizes overall returns to the tax14
payers of the United States; and
[Wow, this bill rocks!]
15 (D) provides public accountability for the
16 exercise of such authority
[Wait doesn't the constitution specifically deny this kind of authority to the Secretary of Treasury, who is appointed at the whim of the President? Last time I checked this authority belonged to the legislative branch, not the executive.]
17 SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.
[Following this Section is not important until the 6th definition comes into play, at which point new powers are instilled into the treasury within the definition itself. Mind you this is before any of the legislation has even been discussed]
[From page 5-6:]
(6) FUND.?The term ??Fund?? means the Trou6
bled Assets Insurance Financing Fund established
7 under section 102.
8 (7) SECRETARY.?The term ??Secretary?? means
9 the Secretary of the Treasury.
10 (8) TARP.?The term ??TARP?? means the
11 troubled asset relief program established under sec
12 tion 101.
13 (9) TROUBLED ASSETS.?The term ??troubled
14 assets?? means?
15 (A) residential or commercial mortgages
16 and any securities, obligations, or other instru
17 ments that are based on or related to such
18 mortgages, that in each case was originated or
19 issued on or before March 14, 2008, the pur
20 chase of which the Secretary determines pro
21 motes financial market stability; and
[This following is the most important definition (of ?troubled assets?), read closely from page 6:]
22 (B) any other financial instrument that the
23 Secretary, after consultation with the Chairman
24 of the Board of Governors of the Federal Re
25 serve System, determines the purchase of which
[page 6 start]
1 is necessary to promote financial market sta-
2 bility, but only upon transmittal of such deter-
3 mination, in writing, to the appropriate commit-
4 tees of Congress.
[?Any financial instrument that the Secretary? determines the purchase of which is necessary to promote financial market stability, but only upon the transmittal of such determination in writing to the appropriate committee of Congress.? What this essentially means is the Secretary of Treasury from this point on will determine what a ?troubled asset? actually is. The Secretary will inform, or tell the Congress what his determination. No approval is necessary from Congress for it actually to be a troubled asset.
Which brings us into the next section on the next line of the same page:]
5 TITLE I?TROUBLED ASSETS
6 RELIEF PROGRAM
7 SEC. 101. PURCHASES OF TROUBLED ASSETS.
8 (a) OFFICES; AUTHORITY.?
9 (1) AUTHORITY.?The Secretary is authorized
10 to establish a troubled asset relief program (or
11 ??TARP??) to purchase, and to make and fund com-
12 mitments to purchase, troubled assets from any fi-
13 nancial institution, on such terms and conditions as
14 are determined by the Secretary, and in accordance
15 with this Act and the policies and procedures devel-
16 oped and published by the Secretary.
[Not only is the secretary allowed to create the program that will handle whatever troubled assets he feels deserve a crap-load of our tax dollars for any reason at all.]
17 (2) COMMENCEMENT OF PROGRAM.?Establish-
18 ment of the policies and procedures and other simi-
19 lar administrative requirements imposed on the Sec-
20 retary by this Act are not intended to delay the com-
21 mencement of the TARP
[This basically says, even if restrictions are placed on TARP by Congress, they do not need to be followed if they will slow down the commencement of TARP. This means they do not need to follow any restrictions at all if they feel it will restrict their progress.]
23 (A) IN GENERAL.?The Secretary shall im
24 plement any program under paragraph (1)
25 through an Office of Financial Stability, estab-
[start of page 7]
1 lished for such purpose within the Office of Do-
2 mestic Finance of the Department of the Treas-
3 ury, which office shall be headed by an Assist-
4 ant Secretary of the Treasury, appointed by the
5 President, by and with the advice and consent
6 of the Senate, except that an interim Assistant
7 Secretary may serve pending confirmation by
8 the Senate.
[This allows the Secretary of Treasury to create new department of the executive branch called the Office of Financial Stability, without approval of Congress or the Senate. The only thing the Senate may approve according to this, is the appointee by the President who heads this office. Of course if they never approve the appointee, they can just name another appointee of their choice in the meantime, so Congress?s approval does not matter at all.]
...continued
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