Congressman Jordan

President Bush quickly signed into law a far-reaching $700 billion bill to bail out the nation's tottering financial industry, calling it "essential to helping America's economy" weather the storm.

The president signed the bill Friday about an hour and a half after the House completed congressional action on it with a 263-171 vote, underscoring the sense of urgency surrounding the measure.

"I know some Americans have concerns about this legislation, especially about the government's role and the bill's cost," Bush said in remarks in the Rose Garden.

An earlier version of the rescue plan was rejected in the House on Monday, sending stock markets plunging around the world and raising fears that the U.S. was headed for the worst economic crisis since the 1930s.
     
But the bill was sweetened with tax cuts and an increase in the government insurance on deposits and savings accounts, to $250,000, as leaders of both parties stepped up their efforts to corral support.
     
"A major problem in our financial system is that banks have restricted the flow of credit to businesses and consumers. Many of the assets these banks are holding have lost value," Bush said.
     
He said the legislation that is now law "addresses this problem head-on by providing a variety of new tools to the government, such as allowing us to purchase some of the troubled assets and creating a new government insurance program that will guarantee the value of others."
     
"Taken together, these steps represent decisive action to ease the credit crunch that is now threatening our economy," he added.
     
He said that if the plan works as intended, once housing prices stabilize, the government should be able to resell the troubled assets - possibly at a profit. "And over time, Americans should expect that much, if not all, of the tax dollars we invest will be paid back."
     
He cautioned that it will take some time for this legislation to have its full impact on our economy.
     
In the last major government intervention in financial markets, the government in the late 1980s took over assets of more than a thousand savings and loan associations that had gone broke. That cleanup took six years.

In the Ohio delegation, Rep. Betty Sutton, Rep Pat Tiberi and Rep. Jean Schmidt changed their votes from the first attempt to pass the bill. They all voted yes this time after voting no earlier in the week.

Local Congressman Jim Jordan (R-Urbana) voted no on Monday and again on Friday.

He issued the following statement on the treasury bailout.

"I understand that there are serious concerns in our financial markets and that it was appropriate for government to attempt to help.

Unfortunately, Washington, as it all too often does, chose a big government "solution," rather than an "American" solution. Instead of looking to address the concern in a free-market fashion, this tax-and-spend Congress chose to spend $700 billion dollars, the equivalent of one quarter of the federal budget, on a Wall Street bailout.

Washington and Wall Street caused the situation, which is already hurting American families. Now, those same American families are asked to provide the dollars to fix it.

This legislation took our debt limit to $11.3 trillion dollars, proving that this is the wrong approach.