yes, its unbeliveable. "NPR's Cokie Roberts" parroted the same thought this morning. People actually get paid to say these things..

Vara

This is a companion piece to Barney Frank's interview on "60 Minutes" yesterday. He said that Congress was not able to pass legislation requiring Paulson to lend money to institutions stipulating it's uses for lending purposes. Later, he excoriated the interviewer for suggesting that most Americans favored bankruptcy VS bailout for the auto industries. When asked about the foreclosure crisis, he predicted that it would be short-lived. His delusions are kind of frightening. I hope that the new administration will be more pragmatic.

The full sentence explains how the Post knew what congress wanted. It's a deduction from the statement "lawmakers included a mechanism for reviewing executive compensation".

Of course the Post couldn't really know what Congress as an entity "wanted", but it's not unreasonable to take something that they did and deduce the reason for that action. But, yes, what members of our government pretend to want and what they actually do is often in contradiction.

I gots NO idea what Congress wants or would want at any point in time, but as a TAXPAYER I know what I want or don't want. If I MUST bailout someone then I want MY TAXDOLLAR to buy AMERICAN LABOR ONLY.

AND I don't want to pay more than 3 TIMES MINIMUM WAGE PER HOUR.

alternative hypothesis #3 - how about "Bushco and the GOP leaders refused to put exec comp into the package"?

Get the full story, and you will understand that Congress did intend to have the pay restrictions, but it got sideswiped, by a move that the congress did not anticipate.

Here is a very relevant extract from the RawStory:
________________________

The Bush Administration inserted an eleventh-hour provision into the $750 billion bailout bill to protect executive bonuses, a single sentence that will torpedo efforts to reduce bonuses even as companies slash tens of thousands of jobs and use taxpayer money to gobble up other companies at fire-sale prices.

Pressured by constituents who worried that companies would take government aid and continue to pay their executives eye-popping bonuses, Congress inserted a provision that would penalize companies who took taxpayer money and shelled out outsized bonuses.

But at the last minute, Bush officials insisted on a one-sentence provision that has now stopped the measure in its tracks, according to congressional aides who spoke to the Washington Post.

The change stipulated that the sanction would only apply to firms that sold mortgage backed securities to the government at auction, which the Bush Treasury Department said would be the method they'd use to infuse troubled companies with bailout cash.

"Now, however, the small change looks more like a giant loophole, according to lawmakers and legal experts" who spoke to Post reporter Amit Paley. "In a reversal, the Bush administration has not used auctions for any of the $335 billion committed so far from the rescue package, nor does it plan to use them in the future. Lawmakers and legal experts say the change has effectively repealed the only enforcement mechanism in the law dealing with lavish pay for top executives."

Bingo ... !

Amen, Dean. Grassley even fessed and called the restrictions on pay (not counting Paulson's loophole) as "flimsy." And, Congress also knew all along that contractually-agreed bonuses, etc. couldn't be knocked downward, period. (James M, posting above, also please note this.)

You need to tell stuff like this to ppl like Steve Benen over at WM, along with many of his readers, who are still delusional about the intent of Congress on this issue.

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JamesM wrote, Get the full story, and you will understand that Congress did intend to have the pay restrictions, but it got sideswiped, by a move that the congress did not anticipate.

But look at the story you quoted: But at the last minute, Bush officials insisted on a one-sentence provision that has now stopped the measure in its tracks, according to congressional aides who spoke to the Washington Post.

Read literally, it sounds like the Bush admin added this, in which case Congress should have been very suspicious.

Let me suggest an alternative hypothesis. Perhaps Congress really did not want to cut executive compensation on Wall Street. After all, word has it that members of Congress gets lots of campaign contributions from very high paid Wall Street executives.

it sounds like unbeliveable alternative

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