It is somewhat reassuring that a growing consensus believes that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's $700 billion bailout plan needs to be carefully considered and modified. Despite the sense of urgency surrounding the plan developed late last week, Congress should not be rushed into approving the massive bailout plan, which was initially described in just three pages.

Protection of the taxpayers' interests must be a top priority, and evidence of that was clearly lacking in Paulson's initial plan, which included few details and gave nearly unlimited power to Treasury Department officials conducting the bailout.

One good first step would be an oversight board to watch out for taxpayers' interests — and to make sure that banks participating in the bailout are not getting a sweet deal.

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain had an interesting idea with an oversight board including legendary investor Warren Buffett, a declared supporter of McCain's Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama. Others on the McCain board included New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a political independent who made a fortune in financial services, and Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, a former Massachusetts governor who had a successful Wall Street career prior to entering politics.

The objective of an oversight board would be to ensure transparency and help determine the prices that the government would pay for banks' troubled assets, mostly now-toxic subprime mortgages.

It is important that the government set a price low enough that once markets stabilize, the government has a fair chance of selling the assets later for a profit. Thus, buying troubled mortgages for about 20 cents on the dollar, a price range established by a July distress sale of subprime debt conducted by Merrill Lynch, might be reasonable.

Setting too low a price might mean banks would be unwilling, or unable, to sell and remain viable —and the bailout would fail to work. But setting too high a price for the mysterious troubled assets, and the banks win while taxpayers lose.

This is, after all, the ultimate buyers market. The banks are in trouble because nobody will buy their troubled loans; nobody knows what they are worth. Given these conditions, the government, meaning the taxpayers, must not overpay.

Another proposal worth consideration would give the federal government an equity stake, or warrants to buy stock in the future, in the banks in exchange for the cash infusion of taxpayer money. This was part of the savings and loan bailout of the late 1980s.

Shrewd investors like Buffett, Bloomberg and Romney would be seen as unbiased and untainted by close connections to commercial banks or investment banks. Presumably they could be trusted to get the best deal for taxpayers and to not favor one bank over another.

In addition to adding provisions to Paulson's plan to ensure unbiased oversight and transparency, it is important that Congress examine other issues such as limiting executive compensation of those financial institutions seeking a bailout.

McCain has suggested that no participating institution pay its CEO more than the president's salary of $400,000. Compared to past excessive pay packages on Wall Street, that's going to look like working for less than minimum wage. But it's an appropriate condition, given the crisis those executives helped create and the fact that the taxpayer-funded bailout is allowing their company to survive.

There is a sense that this crisis requires Congress to act expeditiously. But at the same time, Congress should not be rushed into agreeing to a $700 billion bailout that it not fully understood and lacks transparency.

This week's growing mood of slow-down-and-take-a-serious-look-at-this-deal is appropriate. The Boston Globe correctly offers warnings in an editorial titled "The blank-check bailout," that "when Congress makes laws at gunpoint, good policy is rarely the result."

This financial crisis is serious and requires a prompt response, but Congress must take time to understand and improve the integrity and oversight of the $700-billion bailout plan.