The Week of September 29

Congress had plans to head off for the campaign trail last Friday - but it'll stick around for at least until Wednesday to try to pass what is - by all accounts - the nation's largest bailout in history.

The financial rescue plan: After a roller-coaster week of negotiations and political theater, congressional leaders posted a 110 page bailout bill (pdf) (as well as a handier one page summary) that the House hopes to pass Monday with the Senate following on Wednesday. The rescue plan would let the Fed buy up to $700 billion in mortgage-backed securities (the bum assets that've been sinking financial giants and putting the the market on edge) in an effort to keep Wall Street from dipping into a credit deep-freeze. As part of the compromise, the deal would give Congress oversight of the rescue operation, in part by dividing up the bailout into three installments, with the final one needing lawmakers' tacit consent. Other compromises would give tax payers some stock in the companies they help out, limit the size of CEO paychecks and golden parachutes in those companies and help more families avoid defaulting on the mortgages that got us into this mess in the first place.