Senate to vote tonight on bailout package
Senate to vote tonight on bailout package
Wednesday 1st October 2008
Expectation is growing before the US Senate votes tonight on a revised version of the $700 billion (£388 billion) Wall Street bailout package.The unexpected move, which comes on the second day of a two-day Jewish holiday, will see the upper house of Congress meet this evening before the House of Representatives reconvenes tomorrow.
Senior Bush administration figures are holding emergency talks to convince Congress to accept their plan, after an initial version was rejected by 228 votes to 205 on Monday.
The Dow Jones recorded its worst-ever daily fall in living memory in response, leaving financiers desperately hoping a revised package will succeed.
President George Bush hopes to reshape the bill and bring dissenting Congressmen around in order to get it passed.
The president has already warned of "economic hardship for millions of Americans", while treasury secretary Henry Paulson said the situation on Wall Street was becoming more precarious every day that the bill remained unapproved.
Stock markets are expected to continue their downward push today with no chance of the bailout being completely approved today, despite slight stabilisation being seen since Monday.
In rejecting the bill, Republicans had voiced concerns over the plan's socialist spin. Democrats claimed it was unfair for the American taxpayer to bailout financial institutions and the 'fat cats' that controlled them.
That Democrat message has been championed by White House nominee Barack Obama, who nevertheless insists the bailout must be approved.
But the Illinois senator said he wanted the American taxpayers to be treated like investors.
"I want you to get every penny back when the economy recovers, that's only fair, that's only right," Mr Obama said.
The Democratic nominee's Republican counterpart John McCain, whose poll ratings have slipped since the bailout began floundering, has already warned of the "dire consequences of inaction".
Yesterday, UK prime minister Gordon Brown said he hoped "reason would prevail" on Capitol Hill and that the bill would eventually be passed once further concessions were made.
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