Team Obama hit a much-needed home run today with its plan for Public-Private Investment Partnerships to buy up troubled bank loans and inject liquidity into the securitization market. As of this moment, the Dow is up about 5.5%, and most of the talking heads on TV seem to be (a) breathing more comfortably and (b) smiling.

Market participants are reacting to the simple fact that there is a plan — a blueprint for pricing and disposing of the assets that have calcified banks’ and other financial institutions’ balance sheets and scared away investors. This is essentially what the market has been hoping for since the TARP was passed nearly six months ago.

Adding to the glee is that the Obama/Geithner plan is heavy on private sector participation in the pricing, investing in, and managing of the assets. This program doesn’t look like another giant government cash dump — more like some grease on the gears of the private-sector financial system.

One shadow over the program (and over today’s market exuberance) is Congress. Many of the commentators and market participants I’ve seen on TV have been asking whether there really is upside potential for the private sector here. Will Congress allow hedge funds and pension funds and others to actually turn a profit — even if it turns into an outstanding profit? What about if the rest of the economy continues to lag? Or if some investments turn very dim while others shine?

Will AIG-style wealth confiscation face investors who are lucky and/or good enough to get rich(er) through this program?

President Obama and other members of the Administration have sent signals (including in today’s Wall Street Journal op-ed by Tim Geithner) that they don’t agree with their party’s Congressional leadership on the 90% retroactive tax bill moved last week.

Now would be an excellent time for the president to make that opposition explicit. Some distance between himself and the Pelosi caucus would serve him well in the Washington turf war. And it would send a clear message to market participants that the government sharks have been cleared from the asset pool.