Steg ett: definiera krisen. Från fredagen, när Bernanke & Paulson förberedde kongressen för sitt kommande krispaket; Congressional Leaders Stunned by Warnings:
It was a room full of people who rarely hold their tongues. But as the Fed chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, laid out the potentially devastating ramifications of the financial crisis before congressional leaders on Thursday night, there was a stunned silence at first.
“When you listened to him describe it you gulped,” said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.
[…] the congressional leaders were told “that we’re literally maybe days away from a complete meltdown of our financial system, with all the implications here at home and globally.”
Steg två: definiera lösningen. Från lördagen; Administration Is Seeking $700 Billion for Wall Street Bailout (utkast till förslaget):
Extraordinära omständigheter, extraordinära befogenheter:
The proposal, not quite three pages long, was stunning for its stark simplicity. It would raise the national debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion. And it would place no restrictions on the administration other than requiring semiannual reports to Congress, granting the Treasury secretary unprecedented power to buy and resell mortgage debt.
Kampanjen pågår:
Mindful of a potential political fight, Mr. Paulson and Mr. Bernanke held a series of conference calls with members of Congress on Friday to begin selling them on the proposal, and to assure them that action was needed not just to help Wall Street but everyday Americans as well.
Krismentalitet; lyd utan att tänka:
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said in a statement: “This proposal is, and should be kept, simple and clear.” He added, “Simply put, now is not the time for partisan plans or pet projects.”
En synvinkel från Jim Bunning, republikansk senator från Kentucky:
“The free market for all intents and purposes is dead in America,” Mr. Bunning declared on Friday. “The action proposed today by the Treasury Department will take away the free market and institute socialism in America. The American taxpayer has been misled throughout this economic crisis. The government on all fronts has failed the American people miserably.”
Eller som Paul Krugman säger på sin blogg:
Treasury needs to explain why [the bailout plan] is supposed to work — not try to panic Congress into giving it a blank check.
DISKREPANS 