Monday Morning: the Mother of All Bailouts on the Hill, the Stevens Trial Begins, and Alaska's 'First Dude'

Morning y'all. Evie will be back tomorrow, so you only have to put up with me for one more day.

The Treasury Department wants Congress to approve Bush's proposed $700+ billion bailout of Wall Street -- as fast as possible. Democrats widely support the plan to rescue our nation's financial institutions, but they're also pushing for more oversight of the sweeping powers the plan would give the Treasury Department. And they want a bill that grants government the ability to slice CEO salaries and upper management severance packages at firms that opt for the help. That's likely to meet with resistance from Republicans and could delay any decision until later in the week. And if it takes too long, the Washington Post reports the Treasury Department hasn't ruled out further activity in the meantime:

Sources familiar with Treasury's thinking said that the department is also continuing to monitor troubled financial firms and may have to intervene in the markets again this week, before Congress acts on the bailout, to address specific flash points.

John McCain and Barack Obama both agreed over the weekend that more oversight of the Treasury Department should be worked into the plan. And both seemed to be in a bi-partisan mood. Last night, a McCain spokeswoman said her candidate wants to delegate that oversight to a bi-partisan board -- with members like Warren Buffet, Mitt Romney, and Mike Bloomberg. And Obama said he'd want Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, a Republican, to help with the "'transition process' between administrations."

But despite their overall approval of the arguably most expensive bailout in Amerian history, neither candidate shows any intention of scaling back their aggressive (read: potentially expensive) agendas for the White House. The New York Times reports this morning that McCain still wants to extend the Bush tax cuts and says he could balance the budget through restrained spending, in spite of the newest $700-billion package:

Mr. McCain also stuck by his support for allowing workers to invest a portion of their Social Security payroll taxes in stocks and bonds, an approach that Democrats call privatization and that Mr. Obama has used to suggest Mr. McCain would subject retirees to excessive market risk.

And as for Obama, while he still wants to revamp America's health care to include more people, cut college tuition, and possibly send more troops to Afghanistan, he also intends to cut taxes for the middle class -- and raise them for those making more than $250,000 a year.

Interestingly, $250,000 is also roughly the amount that Sen. Ted Stephens Stevens (R-AK) is charged with accepting in undisclosed gifts and services (AKA bribes). He allegedly received them from a man named Bill Allen -- an oil contractor on Alaska's North Slope. Jury selection for Stevens' trial begins today. He's up for reelection this fall, and the trial is being accelerated in hopes of a conclusion by November.

Oh, and speaking of the oil fields on Alaska's North Slope, The Washington Post has a profile this morning of the so-called "First Dude" of Alaska, Todd Palin. In addition to being a former BP-employee, four-time winner of the 2,000-mile Iron Dog snowmobile race (for one win, he completed the race with a broken arm) commercial fisheman, and one-time member of the Alaskan Independence Party, Todd Palin is first and foremost his wife's biggest supporter:

One Republican from the Mat-Su Valley, who has known the Palins for years but did not want to be identified for fear of repercussions, said Todd Palin's politics over the years have amounted to advancing his wife's career. The Republican recalled that when Willis Lyford, an Anchorage media consultant, told Palin she wasn't ready to run for governor -- a scene recounted in Kaylene Johnson's biography of Sarah Palin -- Todd Palin "blew up."

"He's not political. He's Sarah-oriented, and believes she can do anything -- more than she does," the Republican said.

And apparently, he's taken an active role in his wife's adminstration, with an interest in a number of issues -- hard-rock mining, dwindling salmon populations (Palin's fishing operation makes a good bit of money off salmon), and the fight to save the state's dairy farms among them.

Sarah Palin, for her part, is on her way to New York this week. That's where, according to the McCain campaign, she'll have private meetings with presidents from Iraq, Georgia, Afghanistan, Colombia, Ukraine, and U2 (that's right: she's also meeting Bono).

-- Thomas Pierce

8:37 AM ET | 09-22-2008 | permalink

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