Time To Be At Least A Little Proud Of Congress

I know that I'm going take serious grief for saying this, but I'm very happy with what Congress is doing this week on the Paulson plan: it's job.

The legislation sent to Capital Hill last weekend by the Treasury was little more that an outline.  Essentially, it said "Give us $700 billion and stay out of our face."  That would have been ridiculous if it was only $700.  But at $700 billion (sorry, I just can't help but italicize that number), it was totally preposterous.

A week or so of asking questions, of demanding accountability, and of inserting at least some taxpayer safeguards is understandable and absolutely commendable.  And most (but not all) of what I'm seeing coming out of the legislative process seems to be reasonable.

And you absolutely know that Congress would have been blamed for not doing this had the legislation been enacted as submitted by Paulson without any of these additional provisions.  This especially would have been the case if the legislation was enacted as Paulson submitted and it didn't work.

Congress will be blamed even more now if it doesn't work, and that's appropriate.

Besides, getting legislation of this magnitude enacted in 7-10 days is close to warp drive for Washington.