WASHINGTON - In the days since the Bush administration announced a $700 billion rescue plan for the nation's troubled financial markets, Rep. Donna Edwards has heard from hundreds of constituents.
Not a single one of them was in favor of the proposal, the Prince George's County Democrat said yesterday:
"Members on both sides of the aisle are hearing very similarly from their constituents. And I think it begs the question of how quickly we need to proceed. I think it's much more important to get it right than to get it done fast."
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke warned yesterday that failure to act on a bailout proposal unveiled last week could send the economy tumbling into recession.
But he met resistance from both parties. Members called the plan hastily drawn and, in the words of Senate banking committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd, "stunning and unprecedented in its scope and lack of detail."
While approval of a proposal is expected before Congress leaves Washington for the year, some of Maryland's representatives called for more time to consider amendments and alternatives to the sweeping package proposed by Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr.
"I've been here 16 years now," said Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett, a Western Maryland Republican, "and every time we have done something very quickly in Congress, we have not done something very well.
"I don't want to be driven into a panic mode where you're going to have to vote on something that nobody has read in its entirety. It will be a huge bill, and we have not had time to discuss it."
It was an angry day on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers found themselves caught between the concerns of constituents, demands of the administration and expectations of a market that seemed to lurch from gains to losses with every official pronouncement.
"We've got to get confidence back in the market," said Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger, a Baltimore County Democrat. "We have got to stop the bleeding."
House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer of Southern Maryland said Democrats were working to bring legislation to the floor by the end of the week - but not before making some changes. Paulson is asking for $700 billion to buy up bad mortgages and other toxic debt, in the hope that taking the figures off the books of banks and other firms would restore the healthy flow of credit needed to keep the economy running.
