Judging by the tone of debate in the House of Representatives Friday morning, the bailout bill seems likely to pass. I've heard numerous legislators pledge to change their vote, even as they express great woe and tribulation at the prospect. The Politico's Crypt blog reports 17 pledges to change votes.
At 1 p.m. EST, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took the floor, and delivered a considerably less partisan speech than on Monday, where her denunciation of the Bush culture of deregulation led some Republican Congressional leaders to claim that she had "poisoned" the vote. (They later backed off this claim.) But Pelosi did declare that the message to Wall Street from Congress would be "the party is over."
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R.-Oh., made a particularly somber pledge, stating flat out that we are in recession now, and if we want to prevent it from getting even worse, we must pass the bill. And even if we do pass the bill, he said, we better remember that "in god we trust, because we are going to need his help."
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