Bailout Story aired: Friday, October 03, 2008
The House passes a historic economic rescue plan. We speak with Gail Chaddock, congressional correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor.
AP reports: WASHINGTON (AP) -- With the economy on the brink and elections looming, Congress approved an unprecedented $700 billion government bailout of the battered financial industry on Friday and sent it to President Bush who quickly signed it.
"We have acted boldly to help prevent the crisis on Wall Street from becoming a crisis in communities across our country," Bush said shortly after the vote, although he conceded, "our economy continues to face serious challenges."
Underscoring that somber warning, the Dow Jones industrials, up more than 200 points at the time of the House vote, had fallen into negative territory an hour later. They fluctuated as the afternoon wore on.
The final vote, 263-171 in the House, capped two weeks of tumult in Congress and on Wall Street, punctuated by daily warnings that the country confronted the gravest economic crisis since the Great Depression if lawmakers failed to act. There were 58 more votes for the measure than an earlier version that failed on Monday.
"We all know that we are in the midst of a financial crisis," House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said shortly before casting his vote for a massive government intervention in private capital markets that was unthinkable only a month ago.
"And we know that if we do nothing, this crisis is likely to worsen and to put us into an economic slump like most of us have never seen," he said.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the bill was needed to "begin to shape the financial stability of our country and the economic security of our people."
