tell them NOT to give MONEY to MADOFF!!!!

maybe some who invested in some of his fraud????

Obama sounds like he has some definite plans for this money once he takes office and just wants it to be ready so he can act swiftly without a 15 day waiting period. Its good of Bush to be willing to work with him this way. I just hope Obama tells us all of his plans for it and how he is going to build in accountability to it.

Give most of the money to the pilots who drive a helicopter without
a steering wheel or brakes it must be impossible to accomplish.

It si a wonderful thing to watch the transition of power work smoothly and effectively. This is what working together looks like and lets hope Congress is watching too.

I hope he has definite plans for this bailout. Before they were just handing out money with no plan at all. Noone knows what happened to that money and It is OUR money they are playing with. I think we should insist as a nation to know where our money is going. Look how much money disappeared in Iraq with no accountability. I am happy to see they are both trying to work together. Now if the rest of our paid employees, (congress and all politicians) will work with our president, we may get out of this god forsaken whole they put us in.

The American people are going to be in for a rude awakening when Obama takes office. His plans my appear to be the answer to our nations problems, but in reality it's smoke. Think real people...... Madoff wont be punished to the fullest extent of the law.. ( HE GOT BAIL) theres your first clue. If it were one of those of us lowly middleclass or lower class citizens we would be under the jail rtight now! Besides... the same people that are responsible for making sure the economic mess didn't happen are STILL the ones that are in office.. and employed! our Senators, Congressmen and Governors! Oh yea and the people they hired to work for them. You can bet that in the real world if you dont' do your job you won't have one very long! Those that will alwasy have and those that don't well you get the picture. I hope he truly does do great things for this country. Lets just hope we the people don't have to be the ones to suffer for trial and error.

Just throw out all of our leaders, executives and politicians and start fresh; the replacements most likely wouldn't require $700 billion.

Would it not make sense to give that bailout money to the people that really need it and that would actually do something with it that would help the economy. I am talking about the working people that do not have the money or resources to buy things like homes, cars, food or energy, you know the little things. I believe, if you give the working class the bailout money that just maybe they would get a home(help the housing market),buy a car(help the auto industry), buy cloths(local economy), or just pay some bills to save their credit so that they may someday get a loan. Just something to think about!

I agree that George Bush may have wished he did some things differently. He too is human as is Barack Obama. Things will not change instantly. We shall see how Mr. Obama will handle things.

I feel like Bush/Cheney have been robbing us blind for years and now, on the way out the door, they just landed $700 Billion more for their cronies. Copies of the checks they write should be posted on a website. In fact, that should apply to all government expenditures from now on.

I hope that arrogance, hatred, greed and violence will no longer be central to our foreign policy.

Are there any American politicians who can look their children in the eyes and be proud of the work they do?

So much bitterness in these first 7 blogs (5 in total).
If Bush complies it simply says Bush got something right and that the transition is working as well as any in the past if not better.
In the circumstances, let us count our blessings that it is working well and maybe we Americans might be better off, there are never any certainties or guarantees in politics unfortunately.
But for sure Obama has to listen to the need for more oversight of this final tranche, if not he is not listening to the people as he has promised to do.
Regards,
Hodgson.

i hope this isn't predicted history falling in place. sure does look like it.

I have seen, it seems, continual digs against President Bush. He has held the most powerful office in the world for the last 8 years and has had to respond to many tragedies, here and abroad. He is one person. Yes, he does have alot of power, but some things are out of his control. We have THREE branches of gov't. We cannot place the blame of all of our problems on one man's shoulders.
I know he's made some mistakes, but he's also done alot of things right, which the media doesn't mention. Why don't we show respect and honor to our president in his last few days of office? The world is watching. Do you supose their opinion of George Bush is an extension of the media 's opinion at home?