Rehberg told Montana reporters in a conference call from Washington, D.C., that he believed the tax-funded rescue plan didn't contain enough regulations to keep another meltdown from occurring and offered too many protections for “the people who got us into trouble in the first place.”
“Ultimately, Americans and Montanans and the taxpayers will judge me on how well we solved the problem, not on how fast we solved the problem,” Rehberg said, referring to the growing sense of urgency surrounding passing the bill.
“I think we can hold out for a better product,” he said, adding that he intends to work to find ways of rescuing the economy without enriching the very people whose bad decisions caused the crisis.
The bill has not yet come to a vote in the U.S. Senate.
Sen. Max Baucus, who helped negotiate the bill the House shot down, said Congress must act quickly to strike a compromise.
“If the experts are right and we don't do something soon, Montanans will lose their jobs,” Baucus said in a statement. “This crisis is real.”
Baucus worked on the bill until early Sunday morning, said Barrett Kaiser, a spokesman for the Democrat. He successfully sought to put limits on executive pay for companies seeking government help.
The senator declined to comment directly on the House vote, including Rehberg's decision, but said he “hated that we're in this position.”
“I have my share of concerns, too,” he said.
Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee which first took up the bill last week, earlier voiced some of the same concerns about the bailout Rehberg cited as his rationale for voting it down.
He echoed that message Monday, saying “it's time to stop the golden parachutes for executives who got us into this mess and help Main Street, not just Wall Street.”
“We need some common-sense regulation that will make sure this doesn't happen again,” he said. “Above all, we must not pass a mountain of debt to our kids.”
Kaiser said Baucus, who chairs a pivotal Senate committee, will likely work through Tuesday's congressional closure, when lawmakers will be in recess in honor of the Jewish new year.
A new bill plan must be crafted, Kaiser said.
Asked how long lawmakers had to work on the plan before financial markets completely collapsed, Kaiser said it was impossible to tell.
“Clearly the situation is urgent,” he said.
Rehberg said he was not opposed to the idea of government intervention in the situation. But he wanted to make sure it was as fair as possible to taxpayers and that it didn't reward risky investment schemes. He said he'd been talking to the presidents of Montana's local banks throughout the crisis and many said the bailout as crafted didn't do anything to help them.
“I just didn't see how this would fix the problem for community banks,” he said.
Denny Rehberg explains his vote against bailout legislation.
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sretepe wrote on Sep 30, 2008 10:50 AM:
" I expect leadership to lead and if that means biting the bullet so be. Rehberg's duck, bob and weave to vote NO has cost him my vote this November. This was a bill to restore confidence in our credit markets. Yes, better regulations are needed, but that issue will take a long time to negotiate in Congress. Rehberg knows that improving regulations for the future was to be another bill. "
David S. Robins wrote on Sep 30, 2008 12:48 PM:
" It is typical of Dennis Rehberg and his Republican cronies that they would prefer to cast America into another Great Depression than make serious efforts to resolve the nation's financial crisis. They are principally responsible for creating that crisis by their prolonged insistence upon financial market deregulation. Now the chickens have come home to roost and Rehberg responds like Marie Antoinette. The only good thing is that their actions ensure the massive defeat of their party next month. "
Vrede wrote on Sep 30, 2008 9:19 AM: