FARAI CHIDEYA, host:
From NPR News, this is News & Notes. I'm Farai Chideya. Congressional leaders are scrambling today. They're trying to revise the $700 billion bailout bill the House of Representatives rejected yesterday. The stock market is struggling to make a rebound too. Yesterday was the largest one-day point drop ever. And here to break down the news is the New York Times' international business editor Marcus Mabry. Marcus, we have been hearing a lot from you, great to have you on.
Mr. MARCUS MABRY (Business Editor, New York Times): Thanks for having me Farai.
CHIDEYA: So what do you think caused this bill to go down in defeat?
Mr. MABRY: Well, you know, the very simple answer to that is politics. I think that there are many people who understand both in Congress and throughout the nation that this is not just a Wall Street bailout bill, this is increasingly what's been called - now you hear the term a lot more in the media - an economic rescue plan. Because it's not just Wall Street, but it's Main Street too. But I think what happened in the end, despite that understanding, is a fact that we are only five weeks away from an election. There are many members of Congress, and both parties will be standing for re-election. There is great dislike of this bill out there amongst American voters. And I think that you're just trying to accomplish a huge amount, a $700 billion price tag on this bill, in a very short period of time in a hyper-politicized environment. And I think in the end, politics won out over economic logic.
CHIDEYA: We're going to have on back-to-back two Representatives who voted differently on this bill. But you had differences within the Democrats and then differences among the parties. What do you think is really important here? I mean who do you have to get to the table in order to pass any kind of bill?
Mr. MABRY: Well, you know it's really interesting. This is really kind of Politics 101. Those of us who are of the Gen X generation will remember, of course, a little "Schoolhouse Rock" ditty called, "I'm Just a Bill."
CHIDEYA: And I'm only a bill and I'm sitting here on Capitol Hill.
Mr. MABRY: Exactly. And then if we go back to that, you know, this is, again, Politics 101. This is Law-making 101. You don't have to get everybody there, but you have to get a number to get across the finish line. Now they were 12 votes short. The Republicans say that Nancy Pelosi failed with her partisan speech. The fact is it's really hard to buy that. The Republicans admit themselves after that they've admitted after the recriminations against Pelosi, they've come out and said that they cannot live with the votes that they said they could. They thought they could get 50 percent of their caucus and they couldn't do that in the end.
You have to either get those - some of those one-third of Democrats who've voted against it or 40 percent of the Democrats who voted against it, or some of those two-thirds of Republicans have voted against it, yet get some of them at the table, not everyone. So, you don't have to get near most members of the vast majority of the Congressional black caucus for instance, liberal Democrats, they voted against it based on the fact that this is going to let the fat cats on Wall Street off the hook. Well, maybe if you do some deals where you put in some more financial inducements and help for local and state government which are going to face an incredibly hard time now as this recession no doubt deepens that we are on the verge of.
So if you can do that to bring those Democrats on, kind of popular bailout of local and, say - governments - or you could turn around on the other side and offer some more mortgage insurance for instance, so the American taxpayers might have to pay less of the bill in the final tabulation that might bring some Republicans on. So that there are inducements you can do on either side, either to attract conservative Republicans or to attract liberal Democrats. I think you have to do one or the other, you probably can't do both and you most certainly will not be able to change the fundamentals of this bill to make it look so attractive that those who are in close Congressional races whether they are Democrats or Republicans - those people in close races are not likely to support this bill ever. It's just not in their political interest.
And so, I don't think that's going to happen. "You are going to have to either win either side of the extremes" quote unquote, to I think leap across the finish line to get the majority. And the first opportunity we have to make that happen is Thursday. It's going to be interesting to see how do global markets reacts as we wait and see for the American Congress to actually make something happen. I think there's little alternative but to make something happen.
CHIDEYA: All right. Well, just give us a quick taste of what you think of the psychology of the stock market. We saw this plunge in numbers yesterday, somewhat of a rebound today. Is the psychology of whether or not the stock market does well at this point almost completely linked to whether or not this some kind of package passes?
Mr. MABRY: To some extent, yes. The fall yesterday, absolutely, that was about psychology. The market expected it to pass. The market doesn't mind bad news, but it doesn't like bad news when it doesn't expect it. And so right now the markets are going to be in a wait and see attitude. I think once again, kind of miraculously so far, the market is not going off a cliff again. There's been somewhat of a rebound as people realize that every stock took a hit yesterday. Not every stock in every company is bad, however. So people are now coming back in and buying those stocks that were unfairly sold off yesterday.
So I think the overall economy of the market is going to - I hope maintain this wait and see attitude for a few days. But again, if by the end of the week, we don't see any progress or even see a deal out of this, I think the market is going to be very unforgiving, and I think that's where the warnings that the administration has made, that Congressional leadership in both parties have made about dire economic consequences, the lack of credit, you know, frozen credit markets. And credit is what companies run, it allows companies to pay payroll. That's where the dire consequences will start to affect regular Americans. And maybe you'll see a difference.
CHIDEYA: OK, Marcus, thank you.
Mr. MABRY: Thank you.
CHIDEYA: That was Marcus Mabry, he's the international business editor for the New York Times and he joined us from the NPR Studios in New York.
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