Bush signs $700 billion financial bailout bill

Bad news spurs urgency
Pressure on holdouts grew Friday after the Labor Department said the economy lost 159,000 jobs in September, the most in more than five years, a worrisome sign that the economy is hurtling toward a deep recession. 

That came on top of Thursday’s Commerce Department report that factory orders in August plunged by 4 percent.

Bush lobbied aggressively for passage of the bill, which Tony Fratto, a spokesman for the White House, said was not necessarily intended to boost the economy. “It’s to avoid a crisis,” he said.

The two major party presidential candidates, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., also supported the bill and worked to ensure its passage.

The vote was House leaders’ second stab at the legislation after the Senate jumped the line and passed its revised version Wednesday.

“The Senate may have taken us hostage,” Frank said. “They may have us at arrow-point, and we may have to vote for this even with their obnoxious provisions.”

Some of those provisions were not so obnoxious to business owners like Carl Adams, a real estate agent in Paducah, Ky. Preserving banks’ ability to fuel the economy is crucial, he said, but to do that, the banks have to stay healthy.

“If the banks’ money dries up — in other words, they can’t afford to lend us money for our clients — then you’re going to see everything snowball from there,” he said.

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