The House on Monday defeated a $700 billion emergency rescue package, ignoring urgent pleas from President Bush and bipartisan congressional leaders to quickly bail out the staggering financial industry. Stocks plummeted on Wall Street even before the 228-205 vote to reject the bill was announced on the House floor.
The congressmen started to leave Congress for the Jewish holiday so no re-vote was expected on Monday. Re-vote may be on Thursday, when the house is back in session.
It's not over yet. Those that voted against are being "persuaded" to vote in favour. The bill may come up again. Following the vote, negotiations have restarted on the floor of the house to convince members to change their minds.
While Democrats said that the Republicans killed the Bailout bill, White House was disappointed with the outcome of the vote.
The initial vote on the bailout in the US congress came out against the package. The Republicans defeated the bill - they voted 2-1 against the bill. The democrats voted in favour.
It's not over yet. Those that voted against are being "persuaded" to vote in favour. The bill may come up again. Following the vote, negotiations have restarted on the floor of the house to convince members to change their minds
Wall Street hasn't crashed (it has fallen but not crashed) because there is a belief it will be passed eventually. If it is not passed then the Dow may drop 1200 points according to a broker on CNN. It dropped nearly 600 points after the intial vote, but climbed back. It is, however, still down more than 400 points.When the critical vote was tallied, too few members of the House were willing to support the unpopular measure with elections just five weeks away. Ample no votes came from both the Democratic and Republican sides of the aisle. Bush and a host of leading congressional figures had implored the lawmakers to pass the legislation despite howls of protest from their constituents back home.
The vote had been preceded by unusually aggressive White House lobbying, and spokesman Tony Fratto said that Bush had used a "call list" of people he wanted to persuade to vote yes as late as just a short time before the vote. Lawmakers shouted news of the plummeting Dow Jones average as lawmakers crowded on the House floor during the drawn-out and tense call of the roll, which dragged on for roughly 40 minutes as leaders on both sides scrambled to corral enough of their rank-and-file members to support the deeply unpopular measure. They found only two. ( With AP inputs)