US:THE HOUSE of Representatives is expected to vote today on a revised version of the $700 billion financial rescue plan it rejected on Monday but which the Senate passed on Wednesday night, writes Denis Stauntonin St Louis
House speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was working to ensure that Democrats who backed the original measure will vote for the new Bill, which includes more than $100 billion in tax breaks for businesses and individuals.
"We're not going to take a Bill to the floor that doesn't have the votes. I'm optimistic we'll be able to take a Bill to the floor," she said.
Some Republicans who voted against the bailout on Monday said yesterday they will support the new version, which extends federal insurance on bank deposits as well as a promise to review accounting rules that may have accelerated the credit crunch. Most of the tax breaks are for research and development and other uncontroversial purposes, such as reconstruction after the recent hurricanes.
Some of the tax relief approved by the Senate, however, notably for manufacturers of wooden arrows for children and for rum makers in Puerto Rico, have raised eyebrows among fiscal conservatives.
President George Bush said that the package was necessary to ease the flow of credit, stressing that the effects of the financial crisis were not confined to Wall Street.
"I know there's a lot of discussions in the newspapers and on TV about the credit freeze. Well, let me tell you what this means," he said.
"It means that if you're running a small company and you need to make payroll, or you need to make sure you got inventory to be able to sell a product, or you want to expand so you can hire somebody, you need to have credit. You need to be able to have money on a regular basis from your local banker."
Both presidential candidates voted in favour of the rescue plan in the Senate but Barack Obama told supporters in Michigan that his Republican rival did not grasp the severity of the downturn in the American economy.
"Nine straight months of job loss! Yet, just the other week, John McCain said the "fundamentals of the economy are strong". Well, I don't know what yardstick Senator McCain uses, but where I come from, there's nothing more fundamental than a job," Mr Obama said.
"And when we're losing jobs month after month after month, when good, hard-working Americans who've done everything right watch their dreams slip away, the fundamentals of our economy are not strong, and it's time we had a president who understands that."
Mr McCain has cancelled a planned appearance in Michigan next week, fuelling rumours that the Republican may be pulling out of the state that John Kerry won in 2004. Michigan has been one of Mr McCain's key targets until now and he and his running mate Sarah Palin appeared there immediately after the Republican convention last month.
Mr Obama has extended his lead in most of the battleground states but the Republican insisted that he is not worried about the polls.
"We were up in the polls, and then we were down in the polls, and we were up in the polls, and down in the polls . . . you know, we can't worry about the day-to-day tick-tock," he told Fox News.
"I think we're doing fine. We've got a lot of work to do. I always love being the underdog, and I think we're going to be up late on election night. But I'm very happy with where we are."