Yes and no. I believe it is much more complicated than that.
I have searched and searched the provisions of the Constitution, and nowhere does it give authority to Congress to appropriate taxpayer funds to banks or insurers in order to rescue them. They are to provide a process for bankruptcies, which are to be examined and processed throught the federal courts and as such matters of public records. Corporations in and of themselves are not at all parties to the Constitution at all rather the federal government, the states, and the citizens only. The Supreme Court during the time it was addressing the slavery issue and "property rights" also then created a phantom "corporate personhood," in a case involving a railroad company. Since that time, corporate lawyers and their big business corporate employers have been getting away with murder ever since, where in most states throughout the nation they have gained even unequal protection under the law and above the average "We the People" citizen. Corporate lobbying efforts have resulted in insurers using Congress and the state legislatures to sell their policies and reduce their risks and losses, banks to remove judicial and/or jury determinations in home foreclosures where there is any equity involved, and price fixing in the granting of freedom to assemble by the associations of these various industries for primarily lobbying and price control against independent entrepreneurs.
Contained within the provisions of the "new" reformed edition of the bailout bill is also something that sounds ominous:
"Decisions by the Secretary [of the Treasury] pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency." The Legislation allows the Treasury Department to appoint the same bankers who created the crisis to administer and dictate the use of trillions of our tax dollars. "
This little ditty leaves the oversight of the disbursement and repayment to the Secretary of the Treasury and the Treasury Department WITHOUT ANY OVERSIGHT BY THE CONGRESSIONAL BANKING AND FINANCE COMMITTEES OR THE FEDERAL COURTS. I also have scanned the Constitution and have not seen any authority for Congress to transfer any power at all to a Department Head of the Executive Office. At the present time the foremost agency under the Treasury Department, the IRS, has become so problematic that Congress attempted to institute some accountability, however instead of addressing the problems within this Department, instead enlarged government again at the taxpayer's expense and created the ineffective "Taxpayer Advocacy" office.
Not only do I question where Congress had any authority whatsoever to rescue or bail out these bankers, a legislatively created economic crisis to begin with, but whether these Senators and Congressman ethically should have been able to even vote on the bill, since as major investors in the stock market who also receive perks and donations from the lobbyists for the banks, insurers and Wall Street have an inherent individual conflict of interest.
Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were created during the Carter Administration under another unconstitutional Act of Congress. As a mortgage institution created by Congress itself, and by inference then a governmental institution, how then was it allowed to corporately make political campaign contributions to candidates running for governmental office? It would appear Congress then created it's own source for political campaign contributions, and was used by many candidates on both sides of the aisle (BOTH Obama and McCain received heavy campaign donations from Freddie and Fannie, and other financial institutions).
It is also interesting in that the mortgage mess is being blamed for this economic crisis. Who actually is responsible for the mortgage mess? The bankers and many of those career politicians on the Hill right now who passed the bill.. The ones who also lobbied so very hard during this administration to reform and deny bankruptcy protection to Americans through their lobbying efforts on the state and federal level and are responsible for the unconstitutional non-judicial foreclosure laws in this country. The hypocricy of these banks and lending institutions being a force in denying the relief to Americans they now are receiving due to Congress's largesse with the federal checkbook is the true definition of insanity, while many have even extended these loans to non-U.S. citizens.
No mention has also been made that with respect to AIG, we are bailing out not simply a U.S. corporation, but a global one. AIG has 130 subsidiaries in foreign nations alone. It was also interesting that this vote was rushed through without investigating in the slightest the validity of these bankruptcies themselves. Is it perhaps possible that funds were shifted to subsidiaries overseas and are being protected in foreign banks until the smoke clears, like possibly the Cayman Islands? Perhaps this is going to be a government brokered merger quietly undertaken between Secretary Paulson and the Wall Street financiers and personal friends from his days in the private financial sector that he finds worthy, or Mr. Buffett should he be the successor, also a Wall Street power broker and direct beneficiary of the bailout, who owns Geico Insurance, a direct competitor of AIG?
The American people, it appears, were sold a bill of goods in order to bailout not only Wall Street, but those who voted for this bailout to begin with. While the McCain campaign has charged Obama with socialism and spreading the wealth, he too voted in the affirmative, and has a past history of believing in laizze fair regulation of the financial industry. The bailout was the greatest example of corporate socialism in the history of America. The hypocricy of both candidates after their support for this bill and other heavy Congressional investors in Wall Street, just goes to show that it is tyranny, not socialism, behind the agendas of the majority of those member of Congress who voted for this not to save Main Street, but the Warren Buffets, Bill Gates and Walton families personal wealth and corporate hides. Those that have been afforded privileges and immunities for their risks, feel those that have not only invested in their dreams and purchased their products should then share in assuming their risks and losses.
Communism actually, not socialism at all.