President Bush is confident of bailout compromise
Democrats urge Bush to corral House Republicans and get the support necessary for a deal.
WASHINGTON -- With negotiations continuing on a $700 billion bailout package torpedoed yesterday by House Republicans, President Bush said today that he is optimistic a compromise will emerge.
"We are going to get a package passed," Bush said in a statement outside the Oval Office this morning. "We will rise to the occasion, where Republicans and Democrats will come together and pass a substantial rescue plan."
Despite rumbling within Republican circles that the plan rewards bankers on Wall Street instead of protecting homeowners on Main Street, Bush said he is confident that a bipartisan package can be crafted.
"There is no disagreement that something substantial must be done," he said.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) vowed that senators would stay in session for as long as it took to complete a deal and saw no reason the deal could not be finalized before markets open Monday. He called on House Republicans to "come to the negotiations" and for Republican presidential candidate John McCain to stand down.
"The insertion of presidential politics has not been helpful, it's been harmful," he said.
But Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky called the presence of both McCain and Democrat Barack Obama "entirely constructive." Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the ranking Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, agreed that the two presidential candidates had focused not only Congress but "the American people" on the need to act. He also credited today's markets, which suffered a sharp drop at the open, with spurring talks. "It's extremely important not only to get the substance right but to do it quickly...to restore confidence," said Gregg, who represents Senate Republicans in the talks.
In another sign of progress, House Republicans, who boycotted the talks yesterday, announced today that they are sending Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri to join negotiations.
Reid acknowledged that calls and e-mails to Congress are overwhelmingly against the deal and said the administration displayed "some degree of amazement" at the public outcry. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is "a fine man," Reid said "but he has learned a lot about how we represent our constituencies."
At the White House, press secretary Dana M. Perino said that negotiators are going to "keep working on it" and that "not passing the bill hurts everyone."
