Wednesday, October 1, 2008

13 votes shy of a simple majority


The tally was even or close for the first 10 minutes of voting. Thirteen minutes in, though, the vote slipped into negative territory at 162-166. It never regained a majority of support.
 
Thirteen of the 19 most vulnerable Republicans and Democrats in an Associated Press analysis voted against the bill despite the pleas from Bush and their party leaders to pass it.

Many political analysts projected that the bill would be approved by the U.S. House of Representatives by about a 80-100 vote margin. The reality: bill defeated, 228-205 and the stock market plunged a big seven zero zero and more.

Public policy analysts, professional and otherwise, will spend ample time investigating the reasons why the bill failed, but in a crisis such as this one, congressional leaders, save for reviewing their mistakes, do not have time for the stuff of graduate seminars in public policy: they need to get a rescue bill passed.

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