If you’re like me, you’ve been watching the ongoing soap opera of the Wall Street Bailout with some trepidation.

After all, nobody wants to see the financial system go down the tubes — but also, after seven and a half years of being misled by George W. Bush and company, nobody can ever really be sure if you can believe them when they say they’re here to help you.

Is it safe to drink from the goblet they’re offering?

This is the question America is puzzling over.

To help answer that question, today, the Change to Win Leadership Council articulated a set of principles that any bailout plan should follow if it’s going to claim to be more than just a handout for the financial elite. These are:

• Taxpayer money; taxpayer accountability. No plan should give the Treasury Secretary unfettered discretion or unduly insulate Treasury’s implementation from accountability to the courts and Congress. Lawmakers should create an independent oversight board that includes nongovernmental representatives, with the authority to review and approve the Treasury Secretary’s decisions and to create rules that will prohibit gaming of the bailout. Some details should be written into the law; for example, the mechanism by which troubled assets purchased by Treasury will be priced should be specified, and regulations should be required to be issued by a date certain, with fast track rules for consideration by the Congress.
• Taxpayers share in the upside. If a firm wants the benefit of being able to unload bad debt onto the federal treasury, then taxpayers should gain a proportional equity interest in that firm. This will ensure that if the bailout works and the firms become profitable, taxpayers, not simply bankers, benefit from the upside, and the treasury can recoup some of its losses.
• Prevent this from happening again. No bailout should go forward without a comprehensive, regulatory overhaul of the entire financial system, including revised capital requirements, leverage limits, increased transparency, and limits on compensation schemes. Hedge funds and private equity firms should not be eligible to participate in the bailout and should be subject to meaningful regulation.
• Curb excessive CEO pay. Wall Street executives − especially those who brought us this mess − shouldn’t be pocketing millions while asking taxpayers to bail them out. Any firm that applies for relief must agree to limit the total compensation of all executives.
• Aid the victims, not just the predators. No bail out of the banks can take place without a freeze on foreclosures and changes to allow bankruptcy courts to require banks to renegotiate the terms of bad mortgages so that people can stay in their homes.
• Protect pension plans. Pension plans have significant assets invested in the financial sector, and may have incurred large losses as a result of the meltdown. Funding rules should be modified to give plans adequate time to make up funding shortfalls tied to the mortgage meltdown. In addition, Congress should ensure the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC) has sufficient funds to meet any increased obligations.
• Invest in the real economy. This bailout should not be used as yet another excuse not to make critical investments in our future. A major public investment − in developing new energy and conservation, rebuilding schools and infrastructure, extending unemployment and food stamps, and helping states avoid crippling cuts in police and health services − is vital to get the real economy moving and put people back to work. There should be no bailout without an agreement to pass a stimulus package before adjournment.

Both Democrats and Republicans in Congress have been pushing back on the bailout plan, so it’ll be interesting to see if the Administration is willing to work with them to build a bailout that helps Main Street as much as it helps Wall Street.