It seems as if Congress will move forward with the $700 billion bailout bill after all. Despite previous hesitations, lawmakers on both sides of the floor announced that they were in agreement on the outline of the bill, and just have to finalize the legislative language. The consensus is that the $700 billion will be airlifted to Wall St. and distributed by the Red Cross, while the National Guard will protect against economic insurgents.
Only one disagreement remains: whether bankruptcy laws should be applicable to private homes. The Democrats are all for it, but the Republicans say not so fast.
And John McCain still can’t remember how many houses he has.
Later this afternoon President Bush will meet with Congressional leaders and both of his potential successors in an effort to build support for the bill. According to Bush, the bill is necessary to prevent a large scale economic disaster.
Here’s some more about avoiding disaster, from The San Fransisco Chronicle:
- Bush told the nation in a televised address Wednesday night that passage of the package his administration has proposed is urgently needed to calm the markets and restore confidence in the reeling financial system. His top spokeswoman, Dana Perino, had told reporters earlier Thursday that ‘significant progress’ was being made. […]
- The core of the plan envisions the government buying up sour assets of shaky financial firms in a bid to keep them from going under and to stave off a potentially severe recession.
- It was not yet clear how lawmakers had resolved lingering differences over how to phase in the eye-popping cost — a measure demanded by Democrats and some Republicans who want stronger congressional control over the bailout — without spooking markets. A plan to let the government take an ownership stake in troubled companies as part of the rescue, rather than just buying bad debt, also was a topic of intense negotiation.
Read the full story here.
