The secretary of the US Treasury and former head of Goldman Sachs is not used to being called a socialist and invited to do remedial homework. Still less might he expect that criticism to come from congressmen and senators in his own party.

But in an extraordinary week in Washington, the White House’s bail-out plan for Wall Street has been batted about and sometimes mauled in the hearing rooms of Capitol Hill. There have been dramatic scenes: hours of grilling in packed hearings by lawmakers expressing outrage at the extraordinary powers the administration is seeking; interruptions by protesters holding up placards decrying corporate welfare; the vice-president being “ripped into shreds”, in the words of one lobbyist, behind closed doors by furious Republican lawmakers.