WASHINGTON, Oct 4, 2008 (AFP) - US President George W. Bush has signed a historic 700-billion-dollar Wall Street bailout but the market slump continues as investors feel the bill will not be an instant fix for the broad financial crisis.
The House of Representatives voted 263 to 171 on Friday to pass the largest US government economic intervention since the 1930s, after sparking market and political turmoil by rejecting an earlier version of the bailout on Monday.
 |
| President Bush signs the Wall Street bailout bill in the Oval Office of the White House on Friday. AFP |
Following two weeks of high political drama, Democratic leaders credited White House nominee Barack Obama for helping to win over votes of wavering Democrats to end a political crisis which became a major test of leadership between he and Republican John McCain.
“I am hopeful that we have gone a long ways towards restoring confidence in our markets,” said Democratic Senate Majority whip James Clyburn.
Lawmakers said that the combination of tumbling stocks, which pulled down market-linked pension plans, and a credit freeze which had bitten deep into the day-to-day economy, had changed the political calculation since Monday.
However, McCain called the bailout package a necessary “outrage” and vowed to clean up Wall Street if elected. “This rescue bill is not perfect, and it is an outrage that it's even necessary,” he said. “But we must stop the damage to our economy done by corrupt and incompetent practices on Wall Street and in Washington.”Top House Republican John Boehner said that the version of the bailout passed by the House was superior to the original version requested by the Bush administration, which some critics described as a “blank check.”
“The passage of this flawed but necessary bill is not cause for celebration,” he said, saying Congress had allowed sectors of the finance industry to “run amok.”
House speaker Nancy Pelosi immediately signed the bailout package, which allows the US Treasury to buy up billions of dollars in bad mortgage debts choking the US economy, and sent it to Bush for his signature.
And she paid tribute to Obama, who will take responsibility for the reeling economy if he manages to defeat McCain in the election on November 4. “I really want to commend Barack Obama,” said Pelosi, a Democrat, adding that the Illinois senator had helped reassure lawmakers in tough reelection fights. “He really gave them confidence that this was the right thing to do,”Pelosi said.
Obama said while campaigning in Pennsylvania that he was glad “we finally got this dealt with” and called on the Treasury to carry out the plan in a way that “protects taxpayers” and helps avert further foreclosures.
The Senate passed a revised version of the bailout package 74-25 on Wednesday. |
E-mail