Denied: Bail out bill voted down by Congress

Staff

Published Monday, September 29, 2008

The House of Representatives voted today 228-205 against the legislative package that would allow the federal government to buy $700 million of debt from some of the nation’s leading financial dealers and firms in an effort to free up blocked credit that was threatening to cause bigger market problems.

While the House was voting, the stock market was dropping. When all was said and done, the Dow Jones industrial average lost 777.68 points – making today the worst single-day point loss ever, according to some media outlets.

Congressman Randy Forbes immediately sent out a statement this afternoon explaining both his vote and the mentality behind it.

“While many Members of Congress agree that our unstable economic situation calls for decisive action, an overwhelming bipartisan majority (95 Democrats and 133 Republicans) agreed this proposal was not the action needed,” he wrote. “I have met almost non-stop over the last several days with members of the Treasury Department and former Chairman of the FDIC who cautioned that this plan may not work. Unfortunately, if we spend $700 billion of taxpayer money and it fails, there is no backstop. I believe we should stay in session until we have created a vehicle to give us long term stability and not settle for one that may be a short term fix with a long term price tag.”

Senator Fred Quayle said he was not “terribly surprised” with the outcome of the vote, and said citizens of Suffolk should not get too worried about the activities of the House today.

“Something will pass,” he said. “And, I fail to see the absolute do or die crisis that people have been talking about.”

Quayle said the economic problems have been made worse through media hype, and that the leaders of Washington are not going to allow the “bottom to drop out” leading to any kind of economic depression.

“Everybody realizes we’ve got to do something. This was a good attempt, but it left a lot to be desired…it just needs some further tweaking, further adjustment. I have seen these type of things in the Virginia legislature before.”

He also said citizens should not get too anxious over the stock market drop either because history has proven what goes down, must come back up.

“It will come back just as fast as it went down,” he said. “We’ve had these kind of fluctuations in the stock market over the years…It does that, it always comes back and it gets higher and it will do that again.”

“This is just the price we pay for giving away homes.”

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