| GEO World | | US Senate tempts House with sweetened finance deal | Updated at: 2341 PST, Thursday, October 02, 2008
WASHINGTON: US senators Thursday sent a sweetened 700-billion-dollar Wall Street bailout back to the House of Representatives, feverishly working to convince the last holdouts to back the bill.
A revised bill, which was thrown out of the House on Monday, was resoundingly passed by 74-25 late Wednesday by the Senate spurring hopes the House of Representatives might now follow suit.
The House will now vote Friday on the revised version, laced with 150 billion dollars in tax breaks to coax reluctant lawmakers from both the Democratic and the Republican parties to get on board.
Just over a month from election day, presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain also backed the effort, piling pressure on the House, which sent shockwaves around the world on Monday by rejecting the package.
President George W. Bush Thursday joined the groundswell of pressure urging the House to follow the Senate's lead and approve the massive economic rescue package, warning "people's jobs are in jeopardy."
"This issue has gone way beyond New York and Wall Street. This is an issue that is affecting hard-working people," Bush said in his 14th appeal in the past 15 days to lawmakers.
Senior Democratic Senator Max Baucus predicted the changes would be enough to win passage in the House on Friday. |  |
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