Wall Street's Bailout is a Trillion-Dollar Crime Scene -- Why Aren't the Dems Doing Something About It?

By Naomi Klein, The Nation
Posted on November 14, 2008, Printed on November 14, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/107000/

The more details emerge, the clearer it becomes that Washington's handling of the Wall Street bailout is not merely incompetent. It is borderline criminal.

In a moment of high panic in late September, the U.S. Treasury unilaterally pushed through a radical change in how bank mergers are taxed -- a change long sought by the industry. Despite the fact that this move will deprive the government of as much as $140 billion in tax revenue, lawmakers found out only after the fact. According to the Washington Post, more than a dozen tax attorneys agree that "Treasury had no authority to issue the [tax change] notice."