Holy Crap! House Defeats Bailout Bill!

Wow. Apparently there are politicians with backbone in the House on both side of the aisle. In a stunning move, the House defeated the bailout bill, Bailout Fails in House:

WASHINGTON -- A bipartisan group of U.S. House lawmakers defeated a $700 billion rescue plan for Wall Street on Monday, rejecting pleas from the Bush administration and congressional leaders from both parties of the potential dire consequences of policymakers not acting to help financial markets.

The 205-228 vote against the plan sent stocks plummeting, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down around 500 points as news of the vote spread through Wall Street.

The defeat came despite House leaders holding open the vote for well beyond the 15-minute time limit, supporters were unable to convince enough members of either party to switch their votes against the proposal.

Very interesting. I'm trying to get the actual party breakdown for the votes against, but it hasn't been posted yet. Here's another article on it, however, from the Washington Post, House Narrowly Defeats Bailout Legislation. And we have this from the Politico, House rejects bailout plan. It shows that 133 Republicans voted against it, and a stunning 95 Democrats - for the total of 220 against vs. 205 for.

Now we wait for the financial Armageddon that the politicians warned us about. Something tells me that although more banks and financial institutions might (and should) fail, we're going to be fine. Something will have to get passed, but this wasn't it.

Socialism is not the way.