US Sen Shelby rips Bush admin Wall St bailout plan

WASHINGTON, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Alabama Republican Sen. Richard Shelby on Tuesday sharply criticized the Bush administration's massive Wall Street bailout plan and urged rapid work in days ahead to develop a better package to calm markets "before we waste $700 billion of taxpayer money."

Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, said at the beginning of a committee hearing that the administration's plan "merely codifies (the Treasury Department's) ad hoc approach" taken so far to tackling the worst U.S. financial crisis since the Great Depression.

He said the plan, as initially drafted, aims to rescue "the same financial institutions that created this crisis with their sloppy underwriting and reckless disregard for the risks they were creating, taking, or passing on to others."

"We have been given no credible assurances that this plan will work," Shelby said. (Reporting by Kevin Drawbaugh; Editing by James Dalgleish)