Partisan Bickering Stalls Bailout Talks

"There is no disagreement that something substantial must be done," President Bush said Friday morning at a brief White House appearance. "The legislative process is sometimes not very pretty, but we are going to get a package passed. We will rise to the occasion, Republicans and Democrats will come together and pass a substantial rescue plan."

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped more than 100 points when Wall Street markets opened Friday. Negotiators are scheduled to begin meeting again late Friday morning, but raw feelings coming out of Thursday's developments were clear.

House Financial Services Committee Barney Frank, D-Mass., accused House Republicans of refusing to negotiate in good faith and told Bush "to go to work" to find GOP votes needed to pass the plan. At one point Thursday, a somber Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson kneeled before Democrats at the White House while urging them not to publicly criticize Republicans -- and risk sending the financial markets plunging. Meanwhile, Republican presidential nominee John McCain issued a statement acknowledging that a bipartisan White House meeting he appeared to have sought to help showcase his leadership skills on the economy had devolved into a "contentious shouting match."

Financial markets had shot up midday Thursday when leading lawmakers from both parties announced they had reached an agreement in principle after nearly a week of talks on the Bush administration's plan aimed at restoring chaotic financial markets and easing an escalating credit crunch.

But the good feelings seemed to evaporate about the time a new player entered the fray: McCain, who a day earlier had dramatically announced he was suspending his presidential campaign to return to Washington to help end the financial crisis. Conservative House Republicans distanced themselves from the bipartisan agreement and promoted an alternative they said would put taxpayers' money at less risk.

Tension over the competing plans boiled over during the White House meeting among congressional leaders, Bush, McCain and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, McCain's Democratic opponent in the presidential race.

What had seemed like it could be a triumphant moment of bipartisan problem-solving ended with the participants scattering, with no formal announcements and with signs of deep discord. At one point during the meeting, Bush said that without fast action to help the financial industry, "this sucker could go down."

The stakes of the meeting were evident after it broke up, when Democrats were huddled for a post-meeting conference in the White House's Roosevelt Room. Two sources with knowledge of the situation but not allowed to speak of it publicly said there was a knock on the door and Paulson, who helped devise the administration's plan, asked to come in.

Paulson then pleaded with the Democrats not to blow up the deal by criticizing the House Republicans. The Democrats countered that they had been working with Paulson all week amid criticism of the plan from their own party and constituents.

Paulson repeated his plea that they not do anything that would spook the financial markets Friday morning and genuflected in front of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

"I didn't know you were Catholic," the speaker quipped.

Democrats angrily accused House Republicans -- and McCain, in particular -- of grandstanding.

"John McCain did nothing to help. He only hurt the process," Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said after attending the White House meeting.

Sen. Chris Dodd, the Banking Committee chairman who was among those announcing the agreement earlier in the day, questioned whether the White House meeting was a cynical GOP effort to make McCain seem like a statesman at a time when voters' economic concerns have hurt McCain in the polls.

"For the life of me, I don't know how what was going on (at the White House) was anything except political theater," Dodd said after the meeting.

'Members have concerns'

In an interview with ABC News after the White House meeting, McCain rejected the notion his moves were politically motivated and said, "I know we are making progress." He said the enormous scope of the legislation has several members of Congress unwilling to commit to the agreement announced earlier Thursday.

"Members have concerns about a bailout ... or an expenditure of $700 billion of taxpayers' money," McCain said. "This is the biggest thing of its kind, obviously, in history."

In a statement released late Thursday, McCain's campaign said that he "did not attack any proposal or endorse any plan," and that he urged "all sides ... to cooperate and build a bipartisan consensus for a solution that protects taxpayers."

House Republicans pushing the alternative plan maintained that they had never signed on to the proposed principles for the financial rescue announced earlier Thursday, saying the senior GOP lawmakers taking part in the talks did not have the authority to speak for the rank-and-file.

"At the end of the day, it's a $700 billion bailout," said Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J. "It puts the taxpayers on the hook."

"Does it protect the little guy?" asked Rep. Tim Murphy, R-Pa., another critic of the bipartisan deal. "We're asking taxpayers to be on the line, to take the risk. I don't want taxpayers to be the ones on the line."

Speaking at a Washington hotel shortly after the White House meeting, Obama predicted that lawmakers and the administration would reach a deal. He also reiterated his earlier concerns that presidential politics might infect the negotiation process.

"One of the concerns I've had over the last several days is that when you start injecting presidential politics into delicate negotiations, then you can actually create more problems rather than less," Obama said.

But a meeting late Thursday with Paulson and bipartisan lawmakers designed to restart the talks instead underscored how far the situation had devolved. Frank said Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala, attended but said he did not have authority to negotiate for the House -- and instead talked up the House Republican alternative, which calls for expanding federal market insurance and cutting taxes. Paulson negotiated with Dodd, Frank and Republican Sen. Judd Gregg, R-N.H. The starting point for talks were the principles agreed to earlier Thursday by House and Senate negotiators, which had emerged after a four-hour meeting.

That compromise would keep the basic structure proposed by Treasury last weekend. Under that plan, the department would buy up and later resell distressed mortgages, bonds and other assets of financial institutions to try to put a floor under prices and restore market confidence.

The Treasury Department would not get the entire $700 billion it requested at one time, however. Congress would provide $250 billion to start, $100 billion with additional oversight and the balance later.

The plan would limit the pay of executives whose companies benefited from any assistance, create commissions to oversee the Treasury Department operations and provide more protections for taxpayers, including a plan to secure stock in companies helped by the government. But even there, progress was limited as Treasury resisted the lawmakers' efforts to dole out funding in installments.

A rally around an alternative

The meetings came after Democratic staff worked through the night to put together a draft proposal for discussion. Treasury and Fed officials were not part of the negotiations, though there was back-and-forth on all the proposals and in the hours leading up to the meeting.

The White House has been pushing Congress to craft a plan quickly. But Democrats also clearly wanted to pre-empt McCain. After McCain's announcement that he'd suspend campaigning, Bush invited McCain, Obama and top lawmakers to the Thursday afternoon White House meeting.

But House Republicans rallied around an alternative to what had been announced earlier as the tentative bipartisan, bicameral agreement.

Bachus, the top Republican on the House Financial Services Committee, told reporters there was no final deal.

Bachus said he and other House GOP leaders were also interested in an alternative being floated by a group of House conservatives who were opposed to the Treasury proposal in its current form.

House Republican Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, also issued a statement saying there was no deal.

Frank, D-Mass., and others complained that Bachus had not mentioned any of his concerns, or support for the alternative, during the hours-long talks on Capitol Hill.

The conservatives' plan, which they called a free-market rather than taxpayer-funded solution, was designed to calm the markets by setting up a system of government insurance for mortgage-backed bonds, rather than having the Treasury buy them outright. They noted that the government already insures half of all U.S. mortgage bonds.

The group would supplement their plan by offering tax cuts and other incentives to lure investors and financial institutions back into credit markets.

"Inaction is not an option," said Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, a sponsor of the alternative plan. But he and his colleagues said they did not see a way of getting majority support in the House for the Treasury plan.

Frank said the bill had to pass with large bipartisan majorities, including House Republicans, to reassure investors that the policy will remain in place.

"You can't have people thinking that, as a result of an election, this might change," he said.

Source: USA Today