WASHINGTON — Rushing to win quick congressional -- and public -- approval for its $700-billion bailout of the tottering financial system, the Bush administration moved toward compromises Monday that would have been inconceivable even a few weeks ago, including new aid for debt- laden homeowners.
But even as negotiators signaled that some version of the bailout bill would almost certainly pass, perhaps this week, the financial markets threatened to pop another rivet.
The Dow Jones industrial average sank 372.25 points, or 3.3%, on Monday after climbing nearly 800 points over two days last week on initial word of the rescue proposal. As many investors shifted money from stocks to commodities as the trading week began, the price of oil, gold and other commodities soared, while the dollar plunged against other major currencies.
Meanwhile, President Bush ratcheted up pressure for a deal.
"The whole world is watching to see if we can act quickly to shore up our markets and prevent damage to . . . businesses, our housing sector and retirement accounts," he said in a statement.
The action now centers on bargaining between Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.
Although the measure must also pass the Senate, the administration has apparently calculated that if it can win House approval, senators will go along. Administration officials are understood to have had only a few conversations with Frank's Senate counterpart, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.
Frank laid out the price of his support for the government bailout Sunday in a 42-page draft that congressional staffers and administration officials said was now the working document for negotiations.
In a briefing for reporters, Frank said agreement had been reached in several broad areas, among them: creation of an independent oversight board to monitor the Treasury Department's handling of the bailout and a requirement that the department seek to minimize home foreclosures by slicing the interest rate and even the outstanding loan amount of many of the troubled mortgages it buys.
Frank said at the early afternoon briefing that he and Paulson had also agreed to a Democratic proposal for Washington to get rights to buy stock in the companies whose troubled assets the government buys. That would allow taxpayers to benefit from increases in the companies' stock prices. But by the end of the day Frank indicated that an obstacle to agreement on such a provision had developed, though he didn't elaborate.
