*Talk about inflation

Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson's original $700 billion rescue plan: three pages.

House version that was voted down on Monday: 110 pages.

Senate version that will be voted on tonight: 450 pages.

From the NYT:

“This bill has been packaged with a lot of very popular things to give it even more momentum,” said Senator Jeff Sessions, Republican of Alabama, an opponent of the measure that is expected to easily clear the 60-vote threshold in the Senate, providing some momentum for the House vote now set for Friday.

But the new items also increase the burden on future taxpayers. The $151 billion in tax breaks, which offer incentives for the use of renewable energy and relieve 24 million households from an estimated $65 billion alternative-minimum tax scheduled to take effect this year, are offset by only $44 billion in tax increases and spending cuts elsewhere. Moreover, the increase in federal deposit insurance will not be financed, as the insurance program now is, by assessing a higher fee on the banks that benefit. Instead, banks will get an open-ended line of credit directly to the Treasury Department — meaning, taxpayers — that must be repaid by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation but not until at least 2010, when the temporary expansion ends.

Is it any wonder that Congress has an approval rating of 15 percent?

*It gets worse and worse. From Bloomberg:

Senators attached a provision repealing a 39-cent excise tax on wooden arrows designed for children to an historic $700 billion bank rescue that is likely to pass tonight. The provision, originally proposed by Oregon senators Ron Wyden and Gordon Smith, will save manufacturers such as Rose City Archery in Myrtle Point, Oregon, about $200,000 a year. It's one of dozens of tax breaks benefiting Hollywood producers, stock-car racetrack owners and Virgin Islands rum- makers included in the broader legislation in an effort to win support from House Republicans, whose defection contributed to a rejection of an earlier version of the legislation two days ago on a 228-205 vote.