Bailout Vote
“While it creates a gimmicky $700 billion installment plan, attempts to improve transparency, and has new provisions cloaked as taxpayer protections, its net effect is still a huge bailout of the financial sector that will snuff out the free market system,” said Representative Connie Mack, Republican of Florida.
BREAKING NEWS: Senate plans to vote tomorrow night on a Bailout of Wall Street.
Congress is poised to vote on the biggest government intervention in the financial markets since the Great Depression, but it’s unlikely that any of the three senators vying for the White House will be there — even though all three have talked of little else for over a week.
Indeed, the Senate bailout vote could fall on Friday, creating a huge logistical headache for both candidates even to make sure they’re onstage when the curtain goes up at Ole Miss.
Our best efforts should stay focused on the House: use the roll call of the House vote to guide your calls it is most effective to contact those representatives who voted “NO” and convey your appreciation and approval!
In a vote that shook the government, Wall Street and markets around the world, the House on Monday defeated a $700 billion emergency rescue for the nation’s financial system, leaving both parties and the Bush administration struggling to pick up the pieces.
Congress is poised to vote on the biggest government intervention in the financial markets since the Great Depression, but it’s unlikely that any of the three senators vying for the White House will be there – even though all three have talked of little else for over a week.
One, Representative Jim Marshall, a Georgia Democrat facing a re-election contest, told his colleagues in their private meeting that he would vote for the measure to bolster the economy.
President Bush joined key supporters of a Wall Street bailout package today, prodding lawmakers to approve the plan, hours ahead of a difficult House vote expected later in the day.
Late Sunday afternoon, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid held a news conference with Senate Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd to announce that Congress would vote quickly on the legislation.
“Inaction would paralyze our economy,” Reid said.
Indeed, the Senate bailout vote could fall on Friday itself, creating a huge logistical headache for both candidates even to make sure they’re on stage when the curtain goes up at Ole Miss.
Sen. John McCain has no plans to return to Washington this week, even though on Monday he expressed discomfort with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson ’s trillion-dollar bailout plan and has offered his own rescue proposal.
On Wednesday, McCain contradicted Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who said the Republican presidential hopeful would support the bailout.
Arizona Sen. John McCain has no plans to return to Washington this week, even though on Monday he expressed discomfort with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s trillion-dollar bailout plan and has offered his own rescue proposal.
Republicans had won concessions to force banks and financial firms to pay their own fair share of any government bailout.
Obama, meanwhile, said “the power to spend $700 billion of taxpayers’ money cannot be left up to the discretion of one man, no matter who he is or which party he is from.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, center, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, announcing in Washington a tentative deal on a $700 billion rescue of the financial sector.
Neither Obama nor McCain returned to Capitol Hill for an important economic vote on July 26, when the Senate passed a massive housing bill to shore up mortgage markets and prevent hundreds of thousands of foreclosures.
On Monday, not enough lawmakers were willing to take the political risk just five weeks before the elections of backing a deeply unpopular measure that many voters see as an undeserved bailout for Wall Street.
And Democrats had held firm in demanding executive compensation caps and mortgage relief, reports CBS News correspondent Bob Orr.
The bill went down, 228-205, even though Paulson and congressional leaders proclaimed a day earlier that they had worked out an acceptable compromise in marathon weekend talks.
Senior Obama strategist Robert Gibbs said the campaign would also be monitoring the process as it unfolds, but as of Monday, the campaign would not commit to Obama’s making the trip back to Washington — even though the bailout proposal has taken a central role in Democratic presidential nominee’s stump speeches.
The architects of the plan said they realized they were calling on Congress to cast a tough vote since lawmakers might not get credit for averting a financial crisis since some constituents will not believe one was looming.
Every single Representative’s term is up this year .
If the plan worked, the thinking went, it would help lift a major weight off the national economy, which is already sputtering.
Besides purchasing troubled assets such as mortgages, the current agreement would require the government to offer insurance at a cost to the Wall Street companies on some home loans instead of buying them.
Senior Obama strategist Robert Gibbs said the campaign would be monitoring the process as it unfolds this week, but as of Monday, the campaign would not commit to Obama making the trip back to Washington – even though the bailout proposal has taken a central role in Obama’s stump speeches.
Obama did, however, return to the Senate on July 10 to vote in support of stalled Medicare legislation, which had failed on an earlier attempt to clear the 60-vote filibuster hurdle.
Democrats also hope that, after the compromises, enough House Republicans will vote for the package to give Democrats political cover.
