Bailout backers gambled on arm-twisting

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By Stephen Dinan and Sean Lengell

Democrats and Republicans knew they didn't have the votes Monday morning to pass the Wall Street bailout bill but went ahead anyway, risking the markets on the hope that reluctant lawmakers could be steamrolled.

They goofed: The votes didn't materialize, the $700 billion bill failed and the stock market lost 7 percent of its value in one day, damaging the American economic psyche.

After being rushed to action by the Bush administration, both parties were left scrambling to explain how they miscalculated.

But even Republicans acknowledged they fell short, delivering only one-third of their members, compared with 60 percent of Democrats who voted for the bill. It fell 12 votes shy of passage, though at one point was as close as 10 votes.

“We did think we had a dozen more votes going to the floor than we had,” Minority Whip Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri told reporters minutes after the bill failed, as he and other top Republicans said a stridently partisan speech by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, angered those Republicans and turned them against the measure.

Undercutting their own leaders, though, many Republicans refused to blame Mrs. Pelosi and instead said the problem was President Bush, who has lost the trust of House Republicans — once his staunchest defenders.

"One of the first things the president can do is help to soothe the economic anxiety he has helped unleash, and fire [Treasury Secretary Henry M.] Paulson,” said Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, Michigan Republican, who said the bipartisan rejection reflected what voters have been telling Congress.

Rep. Darrell Issa, California Republican, said the administration should be “thrown under the bus” for the way it bungled the rescue plan.

“I have not nor will not disparage the leadership on either side,” Mr. Issa said. “The administration came in with an 'it's our way or the highway' approach. At the end of the day this was the administration's bill — no real reform, nothing binding.”

The bill was defeated by a vote of 228-205, with the opponents coming from an unusual alliance of conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats. The tally showed 133 Republicans and 95 Democrats voting against the bill, and 65 Republicans and 140 Democrats in favor.