Brother could you spare $3553.38? Each American’s Portion of the Bailout
President Bush Makes New Plea for Congress to Pass Economic Rescue
President Bush warned Congress today that the country’s economy was at a “very critical moment” and that failure to quickly pass a Wall Street bailout would create “painful and lasting” economic hardship.
The president pleads for “decisive action from the government.”
It was the second time in two days that Bush made appearances before the Wall Street markets opened to assure business leaders the government was urgently trying to fashion a rescue plan.
Today’s appearance came a day after Congress shocked the Bush administration and Wall Street by rejecting a $700 billion bailout, and traders — as well as much of the nation and leaders around the world — held their breath to see what drama today’s markets would bring.
Bush said he wanted to assure “our citizens and citizens around the world that this is not the end of the legislative process.”
The president called this week “a very critical moment for our economy,” and he pointed out to Congress that Monday’s stock plunge had cost Americans more than $1 trillion.
SC senators split over economic bailout plan
Even though they’re from the same party, South Carolina’s two U.S. senators don’t agree on the $700 billion economic bailout plan being debated in Washington. Sen. Lindsey Graham says the bailout is a bad choice, but not passing it would be catastrophic to our economy. Sen. Jim DeMint says passing the bailout will worsen our debt and weaken the dollar.
Sen. DeMint says government meddling is at least partly to blame for the crisis it’s now trying to solve. “This is a failure because government injected itself into the free market, created this easy credit, these guaranteed loans, and these loans are what have turned into the bad paper that are bringing all these financial institutions down,” he says.
He says the natural risk that comes with investing built accountability into the system. “But the government has come in and removed that accountability with taxpayer guaranteed loans, and now they’re talking about a trillion dollars more money that we’re going to throw at this problem. And with the debt that we already have as a country, I’m afraid the rest of the world will lose confidence in the dollar,” Sen. DeMint says.
But Sen. Lindsey Graham says he’s got to opt for the bad choice, the bailout, over the catastrophic choice of doing nothing. He says allowing these financial corporations to fail would cause “a catastrophic financial meltdown throughout the nation and eventually the world.”
Not passing the bailout, he says, would have a big impact on South Carolinians. “If we don’t get these bad debts out of the system, then we’re not going to have availability of credit to the average person. That means people are going to lose their jobs because companies are going to fold,” he says.
“So if you’re a South Carolinian in business and you need to borrow money to expand your business, there will be no money available. If you’re trying to get a student loan in the private sector, you may not be able to get any money to go to school. If you’re trying to buy a house, there’ll be no bank able to lend you money. That’s what it means,” he says.
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