Reply #122: Paulson resists calls for added help in bailout

[Pale Blue Dot]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is resisting a Democratic push to add additional help for households to the $700 billion bailout bill.

Paulson said Sunday that because financial markets remain under severe stress there is an urgent need for Congress to act quickly without adding other measures that could slow down passage.

''We need this to be clean and to be quick,'' Paulson said in an interview on ABC's ''This Week.''

Paulson resisted suggestions being made by Democrats that the program be changed to include further relief for homeowners facing mortgage foreclosures and to include an additional $50 billion stimulus effort. Some Democrats have also suggested capping compensation of executives at firms who get the bailout help.

Paulson said he was concerned that debate over adding all of those proposals would slow the economy down, delaying the rescue effort that is so urgently needed to get financial markets moving again.

''The biggest help we can give the American people right now is to stabilize the financial system,'' Paulson said.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/washington/AP-Financial-Meltdown.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

It doesn't make me feel good to say this, but I hate these people and their enablers with every fiber of my being.