After the Congress, Administration officials, and advisors worked over the weekend to come up with the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, a compromise that promised to stabilize global credit and stock markets, the House failed to pass the measure when 2/3 of the Republican Congressmen abandoned their leaders and voted against it. Certainly, it was a flawed bill, but a consensus of Washington leaders, from the President to Congressional leaders in both parties, to both Presidential candidates had deemed its passage critical.

Then why did it fail? It failed because Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson had "poisoned the well" when he first proposed the bailout in a 3-page memo calling for his unfettered authority to spend $700 Billion of taxpayers' money to backstop his buddies' Wall Street firms that had caused the very crisis from which he sought to protect them. He then arrogantly defended this outrageous plan and sent a befuddled President out before the American people to call for its immediate adoption. He also orchestrated the utterly fruitless meeting of Congressional leaders, the President, both Presidential candidates and himself to further his plan.