A 110-page bailout bill, negotiated by Congress under the glare of global investors and an election-year spotlight, will come up for a vote in the House Monday. A week into wrestling over how to save the financial sector from a meltdown while simultaneously shielding themselves from the political fallout of an unpopular bill, negotiators settled on plan they claim includes increased oversight, limited CEO pay for participating companies, an insurance option as an alternative to buying toxic assets, and less pork than previously considered versions.
Democrats patted themselves and each other on the backs generously Sunday as they announced the accord in a press conference about as charismatic and crowd-pleasing as open-mic night at the morgue. It's leadership like this that leads a party to nominate the junior senator from Illinois for President.
At least some House Republicans, particularly conservatives, who had been the hold-outs on a deal until Sunday, sounded poised to cast their votes for the bill.
Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) reportedly called the bill a "crap sandwich" twice during a final meeting of House Republicans on the subject, but said he'd vote for it on the floor.
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), a prominent opponent of the bill made a similar argument in the same meeting:
"It sucks," he said before saying it has to be passed to stave off collapse of the financial system.
Other former opponents said to be backing the new version of the bill are Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) and Rep. Eric Cantor, (R-Va.) The former negotiated on behalf of the House GOP and the latter was a lead proponent of the insurance option central to the GOP's alternative plan, which was eventually included in the final bill language.
The GOP's press release on the final version of the bill says this about the insurance option included: "Treasury is mandated (Section 102) to establish an insurance program and set risk-based premiums. This will protect taxpayers by requiring the beneficiaries of the insurance program to pay risk-based premiums."
But the bill language seems only to require the establishment of the insurance program, which Treasury Sec. Henry Paulson and participating companies would then have the option to employ or not. Though on the surface it seems a good development that the House GOP's insurance option was included, it's unclear to me why Paulson would choose to use it when he's publicly expressed doubts about its efficacy or why companies would opt into it instead of just getting bought out by Paulson. (Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I'm no expert on the insurance plan or the bill language, but that's what I gathered from my read-through.)
Other members expressed less antipathy and more urgency:
"If we don't pass it, we shouldn't be in Congress," snapped Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), the lead negotiator for Senate Republicans.
John McCain and Barack Obama are still undecided about whether they'll be back in the Capitol to vote for the bill when it comes to the Senate on Wednesday, but urged the bill's passage by the House. Obama somewhat mischaracterized the conflict as one between Congress and the White House (about a week past that, Barry!), no doubt in an effort to meet his personal goal of fitting either the word "administration" or "Bush" into every single campaign statement of the year:
"The breakthrough between Congress and the administration is the culmination of a sorry period in our history, in which reckless speculation and greed on Wall Street and lax oversight from Washington led to a meltdown of our financial markets," Obama said. "But regardless of how we got here, a failure to deal with the current crisis would have devastating consequences for our economy, costing millions of Americans their jobs and retirement security."
On ABC's "This Week," McCain used an economy of words with which his opponent is unfamiliar to express an appropriate combination of disgust and necessity: "This is something that all of us will swallow hard and go forward with."
Both candidates were on the phone with lead negotiators during the Saturday-night sessions, along with leading economists and market experts such as Warren Buffet, said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.)
Bush called the compromise a "very good bill" that does what's necessary to "protect our economy against a system-wide breakdown."
Critics from the left held a meeting of the "Skeptics' Caucus" today, during which Rep. Dennis Kucinich claimed there were not enough votes for the bill to pass, and expressed uncharacteristic solidarity with conservative House Republicans:
"There is an attempt to create a fake partisan dichotomy here. This is not about Democrat versus Republican. This is about Main Street or Wall Street," said Kucinich.
Support among Democrats will not be unanimous, it seems, no matter how Nancy uses those famed leadership skills.
Update: Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) remains staunchly against the bill:
Economic freedom means the freedom to succeed and the freedom to fail.
The decision to give the federal government the ability to nationalize almost every bad mortgage in America interrupts this basic truth of our free market economy.
Republicans improved this bill but it remains the largest corporate bailout in American history, forever changes the relationship between government and the financial sector, and passes the cost along to the American people. I cannot support it.
Before you vote, ask yourself why you came here and vote with courage and integrity to those principles.
If you came here because you believe in limited government and the freedom of the American marketplace, vote in accordance with those convictions.
Duty is ours, outcomes belong to God.
