How serious is it really?
What steps are necessary now?
What other measures should be taken to protect taxpayers without negating the impact?
This is not surprising. There are many economists who are struggling to really understand exactly what is happening and what steps should be taken.
Fortunately, there are some members of Congress who have enough of an idea of how bad things really are and what it may take to keep us out of further problems. Most of them sit on the House and Senate banking Committees. The chairs of those committees, Barney Frank (House) and Chris Dodd (Senate) have teams of economic and financial experts on their staff who have been working to create a proposal that will help the situation without creating other problems, like say adding $700 Billion to the already large and growing National Debt without any opportunity to make a claim on future profits from the financial institutions that are being bailed out.
The names McCain and Obama did not appear in that last paragraph and with good reason. They don't belong there. They should find a way to be available to vote on the proposal, but their presence (and that of the national media covering every word, gesture and scratch) will not improve or speed up the process to get to an agreement on a solution. Despite the fact that one of these gentlemen will inherit the aftermath of whatever is passed and its aftermath, this is one of many critical situations they will walk into, none of which they currently have any more authority to engage in other than being members of the Senate who are not on the committee with primary responsibility for the issue.
As for John McCain suspending his campaign and claiming he will not debate tommorrow night unless there is a resolution, here is how Dave Letterman took McCain's cancellation of being on his show on Wednesday night (taped Wed afternoon):
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