Lawmakers’ distrust of Bush stymies bailout

Lawmakers’ resistance to a financial-rescue plan reflects their distrust of the Bush administration and a growing opposition from constituents across the political spectrum to the proposed $700 billion credit-industry bailout.

“Quite frankly, if I held a town-hall meeting and told my constituents ‘this is what we needed to do’ so they could get car loans and business loans, they’d laugh me out of the building,” said Rep. Baron P. Hill, Indiana Democrat, who received hundreds of calls from constituents opposed to the plan, with most saying they were outraged that small businesses and taxpayers were being called upon to bail out giant Wall Street firms.

Backed by President Bush, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke have warned that unless the plan is approved immediately, financial ruin is almost sure to follow - possibly on a global scale.

But lawmakers of both parties say they are not eager to sign on, at least in part because neither they nor their constituents trust that the situation is as dire as the administration paints it.

For one of the Senate’s most conservative Republican senators, Jim DeMint of South Carolina, telephone calls from constituents about the rescue scheme proposed by the Republican administration were running 100-to-1 against the plan on Wednesday, DeMint spokesman Wesley Denton said.

Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick of Michigan, chairman of the 43-member Congressional Black Caucus, said members’ phones are jammed with constituent calls asking them to put the brakes on the rescue package and include measures to boost jobs, education and health care.

“They are calling. They are off the hook,” she said. “There is a lot of consternation right now. We know we have to do something, but we are not sure now what that is.”

Troubled by memories of the administration peddling misinformation about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and broken promises that past corporate bailouts would reap lasting market stability, lawmakers simply do not believe what the administration or Senate and House leaders are telling them.

The e-mails, telephone calls and letters from constituents showing considerable public distrust and skepticism are what, to the surprise of most observers, may make enactment of the bailout anything but a slam dunk.

In this environment of distrust, the fate of the plan could well depend on Mr. Bush’s ability to persuade the public about the advantages to them of the proposal - a task all the more challenging given the president’s low job-approval rating in the polls.

Nearly half - 44 percent - of voters oppose the taxpayer-financed bail out, a Rasmussen Reports survey released Wednesday showed.

That is up from the 37 percent who hated the plan a day earlier and after Mr. Paulson and Mr. Bernanke spent the day testifying on Capitol Hill that a bailout is the only way to avoid an complete economic meltdown.

Just 25 percent supported the plan Wednesday, down from 28 percent a day earlier, and 35 percent were undecided, the survey showed.

Sen. Bernard Sanders, Vermont independent, said his office received more than 1,000 e-mails from constituents opposed to the plan, and he collected more than 2,200 signatures in just two days on a petition that says middle-class taxpayers should not finance a Wall Street rescue.

Distrust of the Bush administration in the public and in Congress, Mr. Sanders said, is weighing down the bailout proposal.

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