Meanwhile, the Treasury Department is set to begin outsourcing the Wall Street bailout as early as this week. The Washington Post reports the government will invoke special authority to hire contractors and consultants without following standard procedures. Department officials say some of the same firms involved in the financial collapse may wind up helping steer the government bailout of their industry. According to the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense, a similar use of private firms during the savings and loans crisis of the late 1980s led to “untrammeled payouts to the private sector and reprimands from Congress and the Government Accountability Office.”