So why give them $700 billion?

Representative Spencer Bachus (R‑AL) is before the House Rules Committee arguing that the Treasury Department can’t even use all of the $700 billion that the bailout legislation would authorize. Congress can allow Treasury some of the money, take a look later at a couple of months of the program, and see how well it’s being used.

His colleagues are beating him up for it, but it makes simple sense. The right answer is not to bail out Wall Street at all — and for heaven’s sake do away with the government-sponsored enterprises that got us here — but a compromiser would let the program run for a few months, with the new Congress in January taking a look at how it’s working.