Bush, Congress must examine bailout details

Last week, we applauded Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s dramatic announcement that the Bush administration would work with Congress to prevent an economic meltdown caused by hundreds of billions of dollars in bad debt stemming from the subprime mortgage fiasco. The move may have headed off a run on banks without modern precedent, a mass panic by investors at the worst possible time, when the cupboards were already close to bare at U.S. financial institutions. This shortage of capital, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke warned, has the potential to cripple the economy. This week, Wall Street has continued to ebb and flow in dramatic ways. But investors’ awareness that something big is coming out of Washington has made fears of a