“A million trillion here, a million trillion there; pretty soon you’re talking about real money.”
— Everett Dirksen
$2 TRILLION?
White House’s $2.5 trillion plan draws criticism over lack of details.By EDMUND L. ANDREWS and STEPHEN LABATON, New York Times
WASHINGTON – The White House plan to rescue the nation’s financial system, announced Tuesday by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, is far bigger than anyone predicted and envisions a far greater government role in markets and banks than at any time since the 1930s.
Administration officials committed to flood the financial system with as much as $2.5 trillion — $350 billion of that coming from the bailout fund and the rest from private investors and the Federal Reserve, making use of its ability to print money.
…
But the initial assessment from the markets, lawmakers and economists was brutally negative, in large part because they expected more details.Basic questions about how the various parts of the program would work — especially those involving the unsellable mortgages that banks are holding and preventing home foreclosures — were left for another day. Some Wall Street experts criticized the plan for relying too heavily on the same vague solutions proposed by the Bush administration.
The stock market, propped up for weeks on the expectation that Washington would finally deliver a comprehensive rescue plan, dipped almost as soon as Geithner began speaking in the morning.
