More on McCain's housing plan

Marc Ambinder looks at whether McCain's housing stabilization plan is legal under Section 101e of the recently enacted bailout plan:

Here's the key part...... "including by preventing the sale of a troubled asset to the Secretary at a higher price than what the seller paid to purchase the asset." Any loan that is not held by the originator, and the vast majority loans are not, would fall under this provision."

So -- if the bank gave you a 100 dollar loan.... and sold it for 80 bucks last year, and it's trading at 50 dollars now, the law prohibits the government from buying it at $100 -- face value -- because that would "unjustly enrich" the entity which purchased the mortgage from the bank.Under TARP, the government wouldn't be able to buy it for more than $80... which isn't face value. So if they buy it at face value, wouldn't they violate the law?

McCain himself, one week ago, praised TARP's taxpayer protection planks and his campaign has claimed credit for pressuring Congress to add them in.