One of the recent govt actions was to create a backstop to support Money Market funds. Implementing that would free up the commercial paper markets, relieving the problem you describe.
For some strange reason, this MM backstop has not been implemented by Treasury. In the meanwhile, we are all made to feel the symptoms of a credit squeeze…. which makes you and many other members of the electorate anxious for a massive bailout. See some comments in the recent threads on the Calculated Risk blog for more on this.
I suspect that we are being stampeded into a bailout.
