The most obvious solution is to pay more than 25 cents on the dollar and then demand something in return for the premium ”” namely, a stake in any firm that participates in the bailout. Congressional Democrats have been pushing for such a provision this week, and it’s one of the most important things they have done.
The government would then be accomplishing three things at once. First, it would take possession of the bad assets now causing a panic on Wall Street. Second, it would inject cash into the financial system and help shore up firms’ balance sheets (which some economists think is actually a bigger problem than the bad assets). And, third, it would go a long way toward minimizing the ultimate cost to taxpayers.
Why? The more that the government overpays for the assets, the larger the subsidy it’s providing to Wall Street ”” and the more it is pushing up the share prices of Wall Street firms. As Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, notes, the equity stakes allow the government to recapture some of the subsidy down the road. It’s a self-correcting mechanism.
Some details of a bailout will have to remain vague, in part so that Treasury officials have the flexibility to respond to an obviously fluid situation. But Congress can still do a lot this week to make sure the final cost is a lot closer to, say, $100 billion than $700 billion.