Making the case for bailout without saying it

"The dramatic drop in the stock market that we saw yesterday will have a direct impact on retirement accounts, pension funds and personal savings of millions of our citizens," he said.

From the initial three-page request by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson for unchecked powers to spend up to $700 billion with no oversight to the confusing explanations for why the plan was needed, the Bush administration's sales pitch has followed a rocky path.

Perhaps because he was the former CEO of investment bank Goldman Sachs, Paulson talked to lawmakers about the plan in Wall Street-speak.

The treasury secretary and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spent more than 10 hours before congressional committees last week trying to explain to skeptical lawmakers why the rescue package was not a Wall Street bailout.

It was not an easy sell, in part because Paulson and Bernanke occupy jobs where most of the time they go out of their way to sound upbeat so as not to spook investors and send the markets crashing. But, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., noted after one negotiating session, "We deal with Wall Street but we also deal with Main Street."

"Those appointed officials, like Paulson and Bernanke, are going to have to become more realistic," Reid said.

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To many lawmakers, the request to put so much taxpayer money at risk was politically toxic — too risky right before an election, in a vote that an opponent could cast as a bailout for Wall Street.

"Lawmakers were upset because Secretary Paulson was asking them to give him a blank check and just go away. I think some of them were offended by what he presented to them initially," said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at the Martin Smith School of Business at California State University, Channel Islands.

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Bush himself appeared uncomfortable in talking about the crisis at first. He used phrases like "a substantial step to provide additional liquidity to the U.S. financial system." And "the American people can be sure we will continue to act to strengthen and stabilize our financial markets and improve investor confidence."

Now Bush is seeking to relate the crisis more directly to family and small-business economics.

Is there time?

Wayne Fields, an expert on political rhetoric at Washington University in St. Louis, said "talking about it as a bailout has hurt" the plan's chances. That's because most Americans don't understand the intricacies of what's involved but can relate to seeing their tax dollars used to reward those who helped create the mess in the first place.

"I don't think you can change the language now," he said.

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