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The Senate Bailout Bill is scheduled to be vote upon tonight at 7:30.  The bill that is supposed to help end the economic crisis in the united states or at least appease it slightly is believed to get widespread support throughout the senate.  Especially after the recent wall street crash of a record 700 plus points upon the news that it had failed to be passed in the house of representatives.

Here is a PDF of the senate bailout bill amendment if you have some spare reading time.  If you really aren’t interested in spending time on a 110 PDF here are the short points that are most relevant:

1. The bill would create a new office to help oversee the bailout.  It will be called the Office of Financial Stability.  It would manage the bailout and oversee many of its duties.
2. It should prevent unjust enrichment of most securities.  This will prevent the treasury from purchasing more than they should for assets that are pretty much just garbage.  It won’t prevent them from spending extra cash on banks that acquired these securities on mergers and or banks that have gone through bankruptcy.  This is a hardpoint that many savvy wall street analysts recommend against.  At no time should the government pay more than market share for any of the securities.
3. GOP Insurance Policy.  This was included at the request of the GOP requiring banks to guarantee the value and performance of the securities and after that sell them off to private companies.
4. Treasury Department Decision making is supposed to reduce the taxpayers liabilities on this, reduce the amount of wasted funds purchasing these assets from financial institutions that will end up in a financial bind anyways, Place the priorities on those items that help save jobs, personal retirement savings and housing values, help the financial institutions that were affected by downfall of Fannie/Freddie, and protect the retirement savings of by purchasing pension funds.
5. There is an oversight committee that is supposed to report back to Congress at intervals of the first 60 days and then each consecutive 30 days.  There is also to be an assessment report done after every 50 billion dollars spent to ensure that they are doing what they are supposed to be doing.
6. Assist Homeowners in trying to avoid foreclosures to homes when possible by making modifications to their loans.
7. Prevents CEO’s of bailout companies from striking larger severance packages after the bill has been passed.  This essentially will prevent any new packages from being formed and ultimately lead to a watering down of the talent that the next CEO might have as most would not want to have this limitation put on them, especially if they can go to work across the street for a nice meaty severance package.
8. Treasury has full control over how much it is willing to pay for the securities.  It also has to detail every purchase in full to make sure that their is a paper trail essentially making them responsible for their actions.  This should keep them on their game as now Joe Taxpayer can easily find out what they are doing.
9. If a public company is granted more than 100 million dollars it is required that the company provide the government with some equity to offset the costs of the bailout.  This could potentially scare some banks away, but not that many.
10. The treasury department will be given 250 billion to begin with and another 100 billion when the president deems it is necessary.  To allow for the additional 350 billion congress would have to once  again approve it.  This would make it difficult to make mistakes on the first 350 billion and cover it up with another 350 billion.
11. If there is a problem with the program at any level congress can seek an injunction to halt it.
12. There is a time limit that ends 2009.  Congress at this time can deem it a worthy effort and continue it for another 9 months to a maximum of 2 years.
13. The Financial industry should have to burden the result of the bailout after 5 years at which time the president will submit a proposal that will assist the government in recouping the money from the financial institutions that survived.

Overall it seems like a decent enough bill with enough oversight to watch over spending.  It doesn’t seem to show any particular language that could possibly allow siphoning of funds into other ventures as most spending ends up with.

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