Projo Politics Blog

By John Mulligan
Journal Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Congressional banking and budget leaders presented a united front minutes ago behind a bipartisan compromise that they will later present to the administration, confident that it will soon lead to a $700-billion rescue of the financial system.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., told reporters after a two-hour closed-door meeting in the Capitol that the key congressional players had "come together, both chambers, both parties" and are "very confident that we can act expeditiously" on the historic bailout package.

Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah, a senior Republican on the banking panel, said, "I now expect that we will indeed have a plan that can pass the House and the Senate."

Bennett -- members of whose party have expressed strong opposition to the package -- said he left the extraordinary meeting with "a sense of certainty that we focused on solving the problem rather than posturing politically."

Along with House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank, D-Mass., Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., and other congressional leaders on financial matters, Dodd declined to speak in detail about the pending draft of the bailout bill. But they reiterated that they have secured the Bush administration's acceptance of provisions meant to reward the taxpayers for assuming a wave of bad mortgage-related debt, clamp down on excessive payments to the officers of troubled financial institutions and help average citizens stave off foreclosure on their home loans.

Reed said that he spoke during the meeting as his colleagues focused on his principle contribution to the emerging compromise -- a mechanism to demand that companies promise an equity stake to the taxpayers in return for the privilege of selling bad assets to the government under the rescue plan.

"We made great progress on all the critical issues," Reed said in a brief interview after he and colleagues faced the news cameras outside an ornate meeting room in an old section of the Capitol. "Now we have to go ahead and have our staffs prepare the details, the legislative language and have discussions with the Treasury."

Reed said, "We walked out of that room with a sense that we are in a position to pass the legislation." Like his colleagues, Reed declined to be pinned down on a precise schedule for releasing the still-incomplete draft of the bailout legislation, the opening of debate in the House and Senate and the final votes that will send the package to the president for his signature.

But Reed said the participation of key Democratic and Republican figures in this morning's negotiating session was an auspicious sign that the package may be able to command broad support on Capitol Hill.

The next big milestone in the production of the mammoth rescue package may be this afternoon's White House meeting among members of the partisan leadership teams of the House and Senate, the president and his top financial leaders.

Later, Bush plans a meeting on the rescue package with presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain.

Although neither candidate has played a major role in negotiating the details of the package, Reed said, "Their presence here will show the importance of this debate."

 Tags  bailout Barack Obama Barney Frank Christopher Dodd Jack Reed John McCain President Bush

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