Melanie Morgan

 UPDATE II! It's dead ...the bail-out bill is as cold as a corpse.

UPDATE! Republican leader Mitch McConnell re-discovers his cajones ...stops bailout bucks - for now.

Politico.com is breaking the story here.

Now back to my regularly scheduled blogburst.

It is really hard to understand what the Democrats are proposing on Capitol Hill for the Big Three - other than billions of our dollars are going to fly out of the treasury, with few strings attached.

Christopher Cox, head of the Security and Exchange Commission has a great piece up today at the Wall Street Journal.

"... it is incumbent upon federal policy makers to ensure that the extraordinary actions of the past months are understood to be temporary, and constructed so that they are self-liquidating. Since government programs do not on their own go away, there has to be a deliberate design to eliminate them, and a relentless adherence to execution of that plan. Anything short of this will almost certainly guarantee eternal life for these vast new federal roles.

Focusing on exit strategies now is of vital importance to ensure that we do not stumble along a dangerous path of confusion that may end in far greater financial exposure for the American people, and a far worse situation for America's taxpayers and investors. If we answer the tough questions now, and make sturdy plans for the future, we can position our mortgage market, our financial services industry, and the broader economy for renewed growth and prosperity."

Quin Hillyer from the DCExaminer.com comments on Cox's perspective:

Chris Cox, as usual, is right: These bailouts need a sunset date, and a means to achieve them.

Look, Cox got blamed for a lot of things that either weren't in his purview or that he privately opposed but was overruled on and felt an obligation because of his position not to speak up about. He was right abut the obligations of his position; his self-restraint is rare in Washington these days.

But here he is finding a way within his purview to offer a well-timed warning about the life-span of these atrocious bailouts. His warning ought to be heeded.

(And John McCain, by the way, ought to read this piece himself, learn from it, and then go crawl under a rock and eat worms since he won't eat his words from September blaming Cox for the crisis. And I hope somebody quotes me on this parenthetical remark.)