On to more important things.  William Isaac, chairman of the FDIC in Reagan’s first term, writes in Forbes on the bailout:

The Senate bill is an irresponsible raid on taxpayer money to benefit a handful of institutions and wealthy individuals we can’t even identify (but many of which will likely be outside the U.S. the way the bill is written).

Those who say the taxpayers won’t lose money on the program are not being truthful. There is nothing in that bill we can’t live without. It will do next to nothing to solve the problems in our financial system and economy (although it might make the markets feel good in the short run).

My worst nightmare is that the bailout bill will not do any good, and we will not have enough dry powder to do the things we really need to do to help the people who are hurting in this economy and to stimulate economic growth.

I truly hope that the 228 heroes in the House will stand firm one more time and will be joined by more of their colleagues. In my judgment, the immediate financial crisis can be calmed by regulatory actions. Congress should be focused on what it can do to help the people who need help in this crisis and on coming up with creative ways to stimulate the economy.

It is unlikely that the House will reject the bill this time, and the leadership will not bring it to a vote unless it is absolutely certain that it will pass, but nothing has changed since Monday that makes this bill any less dreadful than it was at the start of the week.  Arguably the “sweeteners” added to it to ease the passage through the Senate have made it a substantively worse bill than it was.

Update: Hensarling repeated his opposition to the bill on the floor, saying, “There is a better way.”