Henry Paulson, who has been Treasury Secretary since July, 2006, wants to be king while Bush already thinks and acts like he is. 

 

Bush and Paulson are not to be trusted.  Here's more background on Paulson the cover your posterior Bushite flunky for this deregulatory criminal Bush regime that helped cause this disaster, who is proposing to play czar, doling out $700 million in taxpayers money to the Wall Street financial debacle Bushite corporate crony perpetrators without any Congressional oversight

 

As McClatchy reports: "Making the rounds on the Sunday morning talk shows, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson repeatedly said today's financial problems were long in the making. He should know. He was part of the Gold Rush that has brought the global financial system to the brink of collapse.

"Paulson presided over one of the most profitable runs on Wall Street as chairman and chief executive officer of investment banking titan Goldman Sachs & Co. from 1999 until President Bush nominated him on May 30, 2006 to take over the Treasury Department.

"Back then, Bush saw Paulson's Wall Street experience as a plus. "Hank will follow in the footsteps of Alexander Hamilton and other distinguished Treasury secretaries who used their talents and wisdom to strengthen our financial markets and expand the reach of the American Dream," Bush said at the time.

"But with Paulson now seeking virtually unfettered authority to administer the largest bailout of the financial industry in U.S. history, many are wondering whether Paulson also doesn't come with enormous potential conflicts of interest.

"That was one reason Democrats on Sunday expressed reluctance to approve the administration's draft legislation that would leave to Paulson virtually all authority over the proposed $700 billion bailout. The legislation would allow him to decide which securities to buy, from whom to buy them, and which outside companies and people to hire to help him do so.

" 'If we grant the Treasury broad authority to address the immediate crisis, we must insist on independent accountability and oversight,' said Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barrack Obama. 'Given the breach of trust we have seen and the magnitude of the taxpayer money involved, there can be no blank check.'

"But the conflicts are also visible. Paulson has surrounded himself with former Goldman executives as he tries to navigate the domino-like collapse of several parts of the global financial market. And others have gone off to lead companies that could be among those that receive a bailout."

As Paul Krugman explains and warns: "Some skeptics are calling Henry Paulson's $700 billion rescue plan for the U.S. financial system "cash for trash." Others are calling the proposed legislation the Authorization for Use of Financial Force, after the Authorization for Use of Military Force, the infamous bill that gave the Bush administration the green light to invade Iraq.

"There's justice in the gibes. Everyone agrees that something major must be done. But Mr. Paulson is demanding extraordinary power for himself ”and for his successor” to deploy taxpayers' money on behalf of a plan that, as far as I can see, doesn't make sense.

"Some are saying that we should simply trust Mr. Paulson, because he's a smart guy who knows what he's doing. But that's only half true: he is a smart guy, but what, exactly, in the experience of the past year and a half ”a period during which Mr. Paulson repeatedly declared the financial crisis "contained," and then offered a series of unsuccessful fixes ”justifies the belief that he knows what he's doing? He's making it up as he goes along, just like the rest of us.

"I'm aware that Congress is under enormous pressure to agree to the Paulson plan in the next few days, with at most a few modifications that make it slightly less bad. Basically, after having spent a year and a half telling everyone that things were under control, the Bush administration says that the sky is falling, and that to save the world we have to do exactly what it says now now now.

"But I'd urge Congress to pause for a minute, take a deep breath, and try to seriously rework the structure of the plan, making it a plan that addresses the real problem. Don't let yourself be railroaded ”if this plan goes through in anything like its current form, we'll all be very sorry in the not-too-distant future."