The Bush administration has devised a $700 billion bailout plan that would stem the credit crisis that is cramping Wall Street and threatening global markets, CNNMoney.com reported.

Under the plan, the federal government would buy up to $700 billion of illiquid mortgage assets at a discounted rate from banks. The Treasury Department would run the program directly, unlike in 1989, when the Resolution Trust Corp. was set up to oversee the savings and loan bailout.

Jaret Seiberg, a financial services analyst at the Stanford Group, said the bailout could in fact be a boom for the economy, should the government be able to buy the assets at a discounted rate, hold on to them until the market recovers, and then sell them at a gain.

“The government could make a profit, a substantial profit,” he said.

However, in order for the bailout to proceed, the administration must first ask Congress to push up the limit on the nation’s debt. Currently, Congress has the nation’s debt set to rise to $10.6 trillion for fiscal 2009, and the new plan would require increasing the debt limit to more than $11.315 trillion.

“We’re talking about hundreds of billions of dollars, but remember this is not expenditure; this is money that is being used to purchase illiquid mortgage assets that are very difficult to value,” Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “They will be held and they will be resold at one time. And so we can’t determine what the cost is today. That’s going to be based on how quickly the economy recovers, what happens in the mortgage market.”

Lawmakers are currently reviewing the plan, which could be put in place this week.