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ABC's Jake Tapper tried to ramp up the tension about Friday's Capitol Hill vote on the federal bailout of the financial industry. "It is a real cliffhanger," he warned. "As of right now they do not have the votes to pass this bill." Confusingly, Tapper added that "no one wants a repeat of what happened Monday" when the House of Representatives did defeat the bill--confusing because if "no one" truly desired a repeat then it would be nowhere close to a cliffhanger. Perhaps Tapper meant that the Noe vote was the problem not the defeat: thus his explanation that Congressional leaders will hold no vote at all unless passage is assured.
CBS' Wyatt Andrews went into most detail about the extra $110bn that the Senate put on top of the Treasury Department's $700bn bailout proposal, adding "almost every popular tax break circulating on Capitol Hill." The Alternative Minimum Tax has been adjusted to relieve the middle class; credits were extended to alternative energy industries; rural school districts received more funding, benefiting western Congressional districts in particular; property tax breaks pleased liberal legislators. NBC's Tom Costello posed the key question: "Did they offend any fiscally conservative Democrats with these new tax breaks?"--thereby converting some Ayes into Noes.
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