The House has Passed the Bailout Bill 263-171

In a dramatic reversal, the House today approved by a comfortable margin a $700 billion financial rescue package that will bring the greatest intervention of the federal government into the private marketplace since the Great Depression, attempting to intervene on the economy slide toward another depression.

The house has passed the bailout bill 263-171. 26 more Republicans voted for it this time. Pelosi says, "there will be accountability". Now we wait for Bush to sign it into law. We expect him to sign it.

The bill passed the house by a comfortable bipartisan margin. Most Democrats voted in favor of the bill (172 yeas to 63 nays), while a slight majority of Republicans voted against the bill (91 yeas to 108 nays).

The Senate approved the plan on Wednesday night by a vote of 74 to 25, after adding a portfolio of popular tax provisions. The bill now heads to President Bush who is eager to sign it.

Formally known as the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, it would authorize Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. to initiate what is likely to become the biggest government bailout in U.S. history, allowing him to spend up to $700 billion to relieve faltering banks and other firms of bad assets backed by home mortgages, which are falling into foreclosure at record rates.

Many lawmakers who changed sides, said they had agonized over the decision amid a torrent of calls and e-mail messages from constituents, and several cited a provision added by the Senate increasing the amount of savings insured by the federal government to $250,000 per account from $100,000.



“Nobody in East Tennessee hates the fact more than me that I am going to vote ‘yes’ today after voting ‘no’ on Monday,” Representative Zach Wamp, a Republican, said in a speech on the House floor.

“Monday I cast a blue-collar vote for the American people,” he said. “Today I am going to cast a red, white and blue-collar vote with my hand over my heart for this country, because things are really bad and we don’t have any choice. We’re out of choices and our backs are up against the wall.”