Paluson to leave $350 billion on the table

Why we gave him access to the full $700 billion to begin with is still a question I would like answered but this is a good development. Bloomberg reports,

The Bush administration will not seek the $350 billion remaining as part of the $700 billion financial-rescue package, leaving it to the next administration to request the funds, a person familiar with the matter said.

Could someone explain to me how they managed to spend $350 billion in 2 months (give or take)? I thought that costs were estimated at $50 billion a month?

In a related matter the Financial Times reports,

A senior Republican senator is seeking an investigation into potential conflicts of interest among former Goldman Sachs executives serving at the US Treasury and whether any officials exceeded their authority by implementing a controversial tax change without the approval of Congress.

Chuck Grassley, the most senior Republican on the Senate finance committee, asked Eric Thorson, inspector-general of the Treasury, to investigate the "independence" of several Treasury officials who formerly worked at Goldman Sachs and serve as advisers to Treasury secretary Hank Paulson, the former chief executive of the Wall Street bank.

The rush to demand so much, so quickly and with zero over-sight should have raised red flags amongst our Congressional leaders. If there is one thing that the Bush administration is good at it is exploiting tragedy and crisis to steer profits and power to their corporate cronies. The Bushies saw an opportunity to shovel hundreds of millions of dollars to their friends on Wall Street and steamrolled Nancy and Harry - again.