Here's the transcript of Hillary's speech. I'll have out the nose-holding part -- I can see that selling the country on the idea that it's banker greed, not banker fear, that's causing this would be hard, and I agree with tnjen** -- and cut to what Hillary thinks we need to do next; she leaves out the part about the infestment bankers' heads on pikes, unfortunately.

First, HOLC, with new acronym:

First, we must address the home mortgage crisis. For two years, I and others have called for action as wave after wave of defaults and foreclosures crashed against communities and the broader economy. We are not yet through the woods. Millions of mortgages are underwater or under specter of adjustable rates set to rise.

I am proposing what we're calling The Homeowners Mortgage Enterprise, an acronym obviously spelling HOME, to rewrite mortgages and reset terms so that creditworthy, responsible families can keep their homes and keep making affordable payments. Through such a HOME program, we'd also be able to consider freezing adjustable mortgage rates and even placing short term moratoriums on foreclosures.

When our country enacted a similar program in the Great Depression, we saved one million homes without costing the taxpayers a dime. In fact, the program ended up with a surplus. And only by rewriting the terms of the debt held by families whose mortgages can be salvaged will we recoup a great deal of the value of the debt we are purchasing from Wall Street firms.

Second, she improves the transparency of the bill:

I'm proposing we build on a very creative provision in the bill before us, and establish an e-TRUST Program. That would stand for Transparent Rules Used to Safeguard Taxpayers. In the bill, there's a provision that transactions be put on the Internet. I want to ensure that the assets brought—bought and sold by the Treasury Department are reported online in real time, so any American can log on and see how their tax dollars are being spent. All assets bought and sold must be available on a publicly accessible website that discloses the buyers, sellers and values of these assets. The American people are buying these securities, and so the American people must have easy access to their portfolio.

"Real time" is important, since otherwise insiders will have first crack at assets that made available on the Internet two days later for the rest of us. Well done, Hillary!

Third, require the beneficiaries to invest in infrastructure:

As the American people invest in these companies, I think we should ask the companies to invest in the American people. I think we should consider requiring financial institutions participating in this Treasury plan to create an American Priorities Fund to be part of their portfolios, to invest in clean energy, infrastructure, mass transit, manufacturing, education, and other public goods and goals that would be well served by greater private investment.

Dunno why it makes sense to cycle public money through the infestment banks before cycling it out to public projects, but that's a damn sight better than leaving Hank Paulson's golfing buddies to do whatever they want with it!

Anyhow, this turd can't be buffed, but Hillary takes the best shot at buffing it that I've heard. And I hope it fails in the House, so all that happens is a minimalist solution that gets us to January. Hopefully, Reid's odious additions will outrage enough Republican ideologues to make that happen.

NOTE * tnjen writes:

I don’t want her blowing herself up in a suicide run for the sake of a symbolic victory. ...

If folks want to be disappointed they should be disappointed in the fact that a democrat with name recognition and popular support stood up in our time of need, presented a plan to fix the systemic problems in our economic system, and help homeowners and was soundly ignored and rejected by those in the democratic party leadership that could actually put the plan into action. We have a systemic problem in our party every bit as toxic as the one in our financial system.

NOTE Via Talk Left.