Mother of all bailouts

The Bush administration insisted Sunday that Congress must move quickly to approve what one lawmaker called the "mother of all bailouts" - a $700 billion proposal to buy a mountain of bad mortgage debt in an effort to unfreeze the nation's credit markets. New York Times in the Daily News.

Congressional leaders endorsed the plan's main thrust, saying passage might occur in a matter of days. But they said it must be expanded to include help for people on Main Street as well as the big Wall Street financial firms who have lost billions of dollars through their bad investment decisions.

The proposal "does not include the necessary safeguards," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

She called for "independent oversight, protections for homeowners and constraints on excessive executive compensation."

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson stressed that time is critical to get the proposal passed and that changes to the administration's measure, which was sen