Everybody involved in the Wall Street bail-out crisis should step back, take some deep breaths and give serious thought to what is about to be done here. If the financial crisis is as dire as Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson claims, it is all the more reason to pause and assess realistically the bailout proposal now on the table and to consider if there are less draconian measures that are more suited to the task but don’t require effectively nationalizing the financial sector of the economy.

First, the draft text was changing rapidly last night, but several troubling provisions remained that exempted the Treasury Department from proper judicial accountability. No man should be above the law, not even Henry Paulson. There was progress on assuring adequate legislative oversight, but mandatory quarterly reports to Congress, GAO audits  and a congressional oversight panel are useless in the absence of prompt and comprehensive public disclosure requirements binding on Treasury and Congress. With $700 billion or more at stake, more oversight and accountability are called for, not less.