Remember When Nancy Said “We will not simply hand over a $700 billion blank check to Wall Street and hope for a better outcome”?..Looks Likes She is Praying

Posted by Pam on 11/8/2008

Looks like the check was blank and she really has no control over it:

In a letter to Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) asked Paulson to “review the feasibility . . . of providing temporary assistance to the automobile industry during the current financial crisis.”

….

The Treasury has so far declined to assist the automakers, which have been devastated by the twin shocks of a collapsing credit market and the sharpest drop in auto sales in more than two decades. But as the news from Detroit has grown increasingly grim, lawmakers from both parties, Michigan officials, auto industry executives and labor leaders have stepped up their campaign for federal aid.

A plan is in the works at the Treasury to use bailout money to take ownership stakes in a wide array of companies beyond the banking sector. But Treasury officials have indicated that participants in its recapitalization program must be financial firms subject to federal regulation. That means GMAC, GM’s auto financing arm, may be eligible for quick help, but GM itself may not.

The rescue legislation gives Paulson authority to consider the automakers for future programs, such as auctions to purchase troubled assets. But the Treasury has yet to establish rules for those programs, which means such help could be months away.

Treasury officials declined yesterday to comment directly on the request from Reid and Pelosi.

It kinda sounds like Democrats handed over a $700 billion blank check and hoped for a better outcome.