Breaking Down the Bailout Bill

Well, the infamous Bailout Bill has finally passed, approved by the Senate, House, and, of course, President Bush. But for those of us who aren't familiar with the intricacies of this piece of legislation, this CNN article broke down the key components of the bill. I summarized them here:

• Attacking the credit crisis by (the Treasury Dept) buying the troubled assets of financial institutions.
• Protecting taxpayers by reimbursing them after 5 years for the losses of these institutions.
• Curbing executive pay by eliminating executive bonuses if they have made false profit statements.
  
• Oversight through two committees: a financial stability board comprised of current government economic leaders, and a congressional oversight panel appointed by the House and Senate. 
• Tax breaks: renewable energy tax breaks for businesses and individuals, research and development tax credits, credits that allows individuals to deduct state and local sales taxes from their federal returns, and a year-long relief of the Alternative Minimum Tax.  
• New Accounting Rules under which the Securities and Exchange Commission will have more power to change accounting rules on Wall Street.
• Shielding bank deposits by temporarily raising the FDIC insurance cap from $100,000 to $250,000 therefore allowing the FDIC to borrow more from the Treasury to cover any losses as a result of the higher insurance limit.
• Mitigating foreclosures by reducing interests rates and extending a provision that exempts from federal income tax any debt forgiven by a bank to a borrower in a foreclosure. 
• As for cost, the tax bill's tax provisions will come from tax breaks of other legislation. This will reduce the federal tax revenue by $110 billion, and overall the bill will increase the current budget deficit by a substantial margin.

I'm not well-versed enough to make a firm claim whether or not this bill was the right solution, but with the current state of the economy, I don't think America has room for much risk.