Academic

is here.  A reaction here and here.  I won't add much, because I've only found the gloss of the bill, rather than the text itself, which might not yet be publicly available (gotta leak soon, though, right?  This being Congress...) but:

• It contains administrative requirements that would apply to Treasury and homeowner benefits aimed at those hardest hit by ARMs, etc., I think. 
• The former cabins Treasury's discretion (there's an oversight board, a role for GAO, etc) and might make the nondelegation argument easier for Treasury to make, if they are implemented.  They would also:
  • get the government an equity stake, which is no small thing: "We include a provision to ensure the federal government gets warrants from companies that sell their bad assets to us."  That's what it did to AIG, and what some observers are calling for.
  • "add a provision to require the Secretary to have executive compensation standards for entities that seek to sell assets through the program. Such standards shall include limits on incentives and severance and a requirement for a claw-back provision."  Requiring executive compensation standards but leaving it to the secretary to define them makes this oft-discussed proposal much, much less less than meets the eye.
• The homeowner benefits include some relief plans and, most interestingly, a provision for court supervised mortgage deductions!  New ground for Article III courts, errrrr, make that Article I courts serving "as judicial officers of the United States district court established under Article III," whatever that exactly means.  Anyway, Dodd's bill: "[t]he only way to really help homeowners keep their homes is to allow borrowers to get the mortgages on their first homes reduced to the market value of those homes through bankruptcy."  I'm sure the bankruptcy courts will look forward to exercising this new responsibility.