The Wall Street Journal’s Christopher Conkey and Andy Pasztor report that the Federal Aviation Administration is spending $400 million over the next three years on plane runway lights at 20 airports. The FAA says that the red lights have been used on runways and taxiways at the Dallas airport and subsequently reduced incursions between planes on the runway.

It sounds like a good use of federal money toward pilot and passenger safety. One unsolved FAA issue, though, may be the people policing the use of these lights. Baby boomer retirements are expected to leave a gaping hole in the ranks of air traffic controllers.-MB

Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson has earned mixed reviews in his response to the subprime mortgage crisis. But the New York Times’ Stephen Labaton portrays Paulson today as taking charge in Sunday’s multibillion-dollar bailout of public-private mortgage financiers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

It was Paulson who reached out to Democratic leaders in Congress and persuaded them to add the bailout onto a pending housing bill. And if the bill passes, it will be Paulson who has now made the federal government responsible for the debt and financial solvency of two quasi-government mortgage firms that are the nonetheless on the stock market.

With Fannie, Freddie, and Bear Stearns, Paulson and the Bush administration have been quick to bailout the people financing terrible loans. If only Housing and Urban Development could have been as swift helping people who took the loans.-MB