I am more interested in the Bears/Eagles game tonight, but I just downloaded a PDF of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. It is surprisingly detailed (110 page PDF) for being thrown together over the weekend. Here is the purpose of the act as stated in Section 2:
The purposes of this Act are—
(1) to immediately provide authority and facilities that the Secretary of the Treasury can use to restore liquidity and stability to the financial system of the United States; and
(2) to ensure that such authority and such facilities are used in a manner that—
(A) protects home values, college funds, re-
tirement accounts, and life savings;
(B) preserves homeownership and pro-
motes jobs and economic growth;
(C) maximizes overall returns to the tax-
payers of the United States; and
(D) provides public accountability for the
exercise of such authority.
Some of the more interesting language comes in the first Section 101 "Purchase of Troubled Assets." Within this section they setup a Trouble Asset Relief Program known as TARP and gives the President authority to appoint an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury who will head up the Office of Financial Stability. The bill appears pretty strong with required transparency and accountability, but we will se how it is executed.
