Bill Manzi.com

The Obama ad hitting McCain on his tax plan, and a lack of focus on the middle class during the debate.

http://services.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f8/1185304443

Yes more fun with Couric and Palin.

http://widgets.nbc.com/o/4727a250e66f9723/48dfefd7d46a2f4e/48dfe120296a0bff/3dec752a/clipID/704042/video_title/Saturday+Night+Live+-+Couric+%2f+Palin+Open?storeInPid=true

A tentative deal appears to have been reached on a bailout of the banking system, with the Administration appearing with the Congressional leadership to announce that negotiations had succeeded. With agreement principles in hand the fine print must now be created, and the deal is subject to that final round of approval of the written word. From the Washington Post:

Congressional leaders and the Bush administration this morning said they had struck an accord to insert the government deeply into the nation’s financial markets, agreeing to spend up to $700 billion to relieve Wall Street of troubled assets backed by faltering home mortgages.

House and Senate negotiators from both parties emerged with Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. at 12:30 a.m. from a marathon session in the Capitol to announce that they had reached a tentative agreement on a proposal to give Paulson broad authority to organize one of the biggest government interventions in the private sector since the Great Depression.

While the details are being put to paper the Post is reporting some areas of agreement:

A senior administration official, who requested anonymity to speak freely about the plan, said both sides had made significant concessions to achieve compromise. The Bush administration has agreed to accept a number of Democratic demands, including:

· The money would be dispersed in segments, with Paulson receiving $250 billion immediately, $100 billion upon White House certification of its necessity and the final $350 billion only after Congress has been given 15 days to object.

· Firms participating in the bailout would be required to grant the government warrants to obtain nonvoting shares of stock, so taxpayers can benefit if the companies return to profitability.

Firms taking advantage of the bailout would be required to limit compensation for senior executives, with especially severe limits on “golden parachutes” at failing firms. The compensation limits will be enacted primarily, but not solely, through the tax code by reducing tax deductions for firms that pay executives more than $400,000 a year.

The administration also agreed to Democratic demands that the financial services industry should help pay for the program. Under the agreement, the president would be required to propose a fee on the industry if the government has not recovered its money through sales of the assets within five years.

The Democrats were forced to give as well.

Democrats also made a number of concessions, abandoning demands that bankruptcy judges be empowered to modify home mortgages on primary residences for people in foreclosure. They also agreed not to dedicate a portion of any profits from the bailout program to an affordable housing fund that Republicans claimed would primarily assist social service organizations that support the Democratic Party, the official said.

Meanwhile, House Republicans won a major victory, persuading negotiators to include a provision that would require the Treasury Department to create a federal insurance program that would guarantee banks and other firms against loss from any troubled asset, the official said.

And so as the details are now worked out you have a fundamental re-ordering of the American financial system, and at $700 billion we do not know if it will really work. I hope that it does for everyones sake.

Obama takes to the airwaves with a new ad talking about his economic plan.

Actor Paul Newman died at age 83. He made great films, and will be remembered as one of the great actors of all time. Here he is with Jackie Gleason in “The Hustler”.

So what do you think? Was there a winner last night? I thought that Obama was superior in delivery, but McCain was a bulldog, trying to instill doubt about Obama being in the foreign policy mainstream. I think that debating points aside that the longer the nation is focused on economic matters the better off Obama is. McCain will have trouble competing on that level.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22425001/vp/26909249#26909249

John McCain has reversed course and will appear at tonights debate. He was for the debate before he was against the debate, until such time as he was for it again. I guess that means he shows up for tonights debate. McCain’s reversal comes despite the fact that no agreement has been reached on a financial package in Washington. McCain had indicated that he would leave his campaign “suspended” until an agreement was in hand. I am not sure what that is in McCain’s hand, but it certainly doesn’t look like an agreement.
That package is now mired in a Republican civil war, with conservative House Republicans firmly against the package put forward by President Bush. McCain likely retreated out of Washington to avoid having to take a position in that intramural dispute, and I have not seen a public pronouncement on his position as of yet. Maybe tonights debate will shed some light on that position. If not does anyone think he can explain how Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is keeping a “close watch” over her Russian neighbor, and whether Mr. Putin has made any false moves over the Bering Strait. I have attached a webcam photo of the Bering Strait, and have found out that a live webcam is in place there.

Despite an afternoon announcement that an agreement was near on the Bush Administration proposal to bailout the financial services industry, by yesterday evening the entire process had been blown up by House Republicans. The apparent agreement reached in the afternoon was described by the Washington Post this way:

During a nearly three-hour meeting, lawmakers reached an “agreement on principles.”

Under that agreement, the package would be broken into three parts. Paulson would receive $250 billion immediately and $100 billion more upon certification that the funds are necessary. The final $350 billion could be dispersed without additional congressional approval, but Congress would be given 30 days to object.

But a short time after word of a prospective deal leaked out House Republicans repudiated the central tenets involved.

Less than 30 minutes later, however, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.), who had attended the meeting on behalf of House Republicans, denied that an agreement had been reached. While progress was made on peripheral issues, Bachus said, House Republicans remained adamantly opposed to the central point of the plan: purchasing bad assets from struggling firms.

“There’s not a deal. There’s not a deal made. There was progress on the issues,” Bachus told reporters. He said House Republicans “would prefer a loan where we fix an interest rate or we would prefer insurance” rather than having the government buy up bad assets.

Bachus said many of those ideas were supported by McCain, who returned to Washington yesterday to participate in the negotiations. Bachus said he spoke to McCain on Wednesday, had breakfast yesterday with two McCain advisers and spoke to McCain again immediately after the morning meeting.

But, Bachus said, “John’s not trying to call the shots for the House caucus, I can tell you that. He’s just opposed to the plan in its present form.”

So McCain was for the plan before he was against it.

President Bush, looking to put the deal back together, hosted a meeting at the White House attended by a bipartisan group of Congressional leaders, as well as Senators McCain and Obama. After the photo-op that meeting broke down into a shouting match, as House Republican Leader Hohn Boehner floated a new proposal.

Democrats accused Boehner of acting on behalf of GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) in trying to disrupt a developing consensus. The new proposal also displeased White House officials, including Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., who chased after Democrats leaving the meeting and — half-jokingly — dropped to one knee and pleaded with them not to “blow up” the $700 billion deal, according to people present at the meeting.

When meeting participants demanded to know McCain’s position he simply said he supported the principles outlined by House Republicans. McCain seems to have at least in part blown up the process that he claims he came in to save on a “bipartisan basis”. The potential for real gridlock exists here, with political games apparently more important than real solutions. Maybe if McCain leaves Washington and goes to the debate the consensus that appeared before his arrival will return.