Trying Again at the Financial Rescue Vote

By Anastacia Mott Austin

They’re trying it again. After several false starts and premature announcements of success, the re-revised bill popularly known as the Wall Street financial bailout plan is heading for a vote by the Senate.

After that, it will be sent back to the House for a new vote on the revised plan.

While political polls suggest that the plan will pass in the Senate, nothing’s a guarantee in these crazy days of last-minute surprises.

Tax breaks and an increase in bank-deposit insurance (up from $100,000 to $250,000) were added in efforts to appease those, primarily Republicans, who had opposed the bill. Two-thirds of House Republicans voted against the bill originally. Unfortunately, the changes could mean that Democrats will now have a bigger problem with it.

However, there is mounting pressure on all sides for both the Senate and the House to pass some version of the bill. President Bush urged a vote, saying "It's very important for us to be able to pass this piece of legislation so as to stabilize the situation so it doesn't get worse and that our fellow citizens lose wealth and work."

Congress members are saying that their constituents, wildly opposed to the bailout measure at first, have changed their minds en masse after seeing the 778-point drop in the market on Monday when the first attempt to pass the measure failed.

"Over $1 trillion worth of market value was wiped off the books by the stock market drop,"said Senator Robert Bennett (R-Utah) to reporters. "It is ordinary people looking at ordinary pensions, with their ordinary Main Street kind of 401(k) plans, who lost that $1 trillion. And they lost it in a matter of minutes."

Representatives from Republican Joe Barton’s Congressional office said that there had been as much as a 70% reversal in opinion from that office’s constituents, who panicked after their personal profiles suffered this week.

However, Barton said he still wouldn’t vote for the plan, despite the changes made. "The bill that they are going to send back is the same bill that I voted against two days ago,'' Barton said to Bloomberg reporters. "Why would I turn around and vote for it?"

Barton added that the bailout plan fails to address the underlying problems with the credit situation in this country, and would add billions of dollars to the existing deficit.

Barton’s stance is troubling those who have worked at the negotiating table for endless hours, trying to craft a compromise.

"There are a few people in the House who would rather we did this some other way," announced Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid(D-NV) to the press. "We've tried other ways. We've got to get this done."