Hold on, Harry and Henry!

Senate Majority "Leader" Harry Reid and Comrade Henry Paulson seem far too eager to pass the big $700 billion bailout plan thru Congress.

First, Reid erroneously stated that there was bipartisan support for the plan. The last I heard, John McCain wasn't on board. While he did say "further inaction is simply not an option," that doesn't mean he's in the rubberstamp business.

$700 billion is a lot of money, almost incomprehensible. So, let's break it down into terms everyone in this country can comprehend. That is $10,000 in additional debt that every household in America is being asked to assume.

I don't know about the rest of ye socks, but ten grand is still a sizeable chunk of change in this little corner of heaven.

I do not profess to be a master economist by any stretch of the imagination, so am willing to defer to the experts when they assure us that SOMETHING must be done fairly quickly to avoid complete chaos.

But, I'm with McCain on this one. Some provisions really need to be incorporated into any bailout scheme, including:

- Defining the level of governmental oversight for those entities accepting bailout money.
- Addressing the ridiculous executive compensation packages to cap salaries and eliminate "golden parachutes" for any business that feeds from the government trough.
- Demanding transparent accounting practices to restore public confidence.

Washington and Wall Street have become far too cozy. We don't need to make it any easier on them by rushing through the Paulson plan. We do need to know what we're getting ourselves into, and that's worth at least a few extra days of careful examination. The price tag on this one is just too large to do any less.

And, hold on to your hats, folks. I hear the auto manufacturers are waiting eagerly in the wings to see how all this goes, because they want to float the bailout balloon for their industry, too . . .

Is capitalism dying in the USofA?