Few politicos comment on House rejection of bailout

The proposed $700 billion bailout defeated in the U.S. House of Representatives on Monday appears to be a hot potato for many politicos who didn’t have to vote on it.

U.S. Reps. Steve Pearce, Tom Udall and Heather Wilson all commented on the bill after Pearce and Udall voted against it and Wilson voted for it. Click here to read their comments.

Beyond that, few of the top politicos and candidates for office in New Mexico chose to comment on Monday’s vote.

U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici was one who quickly responded to a request for comment, releasing a statement expressing his disappointment.

“Doing nothing is not an option. This action will precipitate an economic catastrophe for America,” Domenici said. “The initial response to this ill-advised action has been limited so far to the equity market and the corporate-bond market, but I predict that the defeat of the plan will soon permeate our entire economy. It will also have serious and not completely predictable consequences in all markets throughout the world.”

“This plan included many features that those who opposed it wanted. It had many new safeguards for the taxpayer,” he said. “Yet a rigid adherence to an ideological purity on both sides that has never existed in our nation led many in the House to reject the plan.”

Domenici said the rejection of the proposal “cannot be the last word the Congress has to say.”

E-mail requests for comment sent to the offices of Sen. Jeff Bingaman and Gov. Bill Richardson went unanswered on Monday. It was even more difficult to get comment out of six of the seven candidates seeking to replace Pearce, Udall and Wilson in the House. The only U.S. House campaign that has provided comment in response to an e-mail request sent Monday morning after the House rejected the bill is that of Republican 2nd Congressional District candidate Ed Tinsley.

“Congress needs to get this right and instill some level of confidence amongst the American people and the world at large, which is watching closely what’s going on here,” Tinsley spokesman Jim Pettit said. “Pension plans and lifetime savings are at risk, as is the prospect of a downward spiral in all of the credit markets — not just home mortgages.”

Pettit said people in southern New Mexico “need to get their money’s worth from any rescue plan. Somehow, left out in all of this is how a rescue plan helps the average homeowner in southern New Mexico — people who played by the rules, signing up for loans they could afford and avoiding reckless speculation.”

“Unfortunately, however, everyone is at risk and Congress needs to step up and provide a short-term plan to unfreeze the credit markets, followed up by serious, long-term reform of our financial regulators,” Pettit said.

Republican 3rd District candidate Dan East’s campaign said a statement was coming, but none has arrived. Republican 1st District candidate Darren White’s spokesman, Stephen Schatz, said White would let those who had to vote on the bill do the talking, at least at this point.

The campaigns of the other federal candidates haven’t responded to the e-mail request for comment.

This must be a difficult position for all of them. Democrat and Republican, the U.S. House candidates are faced with a situation in which their party’s presidential candidate supported the bailout bill but their U.S. Senate candidate opposed it. And, as the Albuquerque Journal is reporting, congressional phone systems have been flooded with calls in opposition to the bailout proposal.

Perhaps most of the candidates think the best bet is to wait it out and see what happens next.