Congressional leaders say changes to the Paulson plan enjoin draw enough votes, but they were confident on Monday, too

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U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) indicate to the clasp after the House of Representatives voted the floor the bailout package on Sept. 29, 2008 in Washington, DC Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images

by Theo Francis and Jane Sasseen

On Thursday night, Oct. 2, all eyes were on the Vice-Presidential controversy. Friday, however, they will turn anew to the House of Representatives, as it holds a do-over of its dramatic Monday vote. Will the House this time utter the financial-system bailout that the Administration and business groups are demanding, and which the Senate passed Wednesday night?

The odds seem excellence. But that’s a far cry from the near-certainty that preceded the Senate vote. And after Monday’sitting sudden about-face, it hardly inspires confidence.

To be sure, new poll figures suggest public opposition to the financial recover bill (BusinessWeek.com, 10/2/08) isn’t for example strong because it seemed Monday. Several dissenting lawmakers have publicly said they’ll vote "yea."

Lobbyists are pulling lacking all the stops (BusinessWeek.com, 10/2/08). And word is that House leaders won’familiarily bring the bill to a vote at all unless they are fast—really, absolutely sure—that it will pass. Democrats were immovable to caucus at 6:30 p.m. ET Thursday. Meantime, rumors raced that the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett himself, had been calling lawmakers to urge passage. His $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs (GS) and $3 billion investment in General Electic (GE) could run into great trouble if the package does not go forward. (Buffett’session office declined to comment.)

So possibly everyone’s just being careful to avoid falling flat on their faces again. And yet, there are a hardly any troubling signs. "I don’t contrive they have the votes yet," Dan Clifton, a Washington analyst for Strategas Research Partners, said Thursday afternoon.

A good part of the uncertainty lies in the very changes that the Senate made to win to boot the Republicans who balked on Monday. The bill-hook, which started life as a three-page proposal from Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, has swollen to more than 400 pages (BusinessWeek.com, 10/1/08), fattened up most recently with charge breaks and an increase in federal bank-deposit insurance limits, as healthy as the mental-health likeness bill that is existence used being of the class who the procedural vehicle to infer the whole shebang from Senate to House.

A slew of tax breaks added in the Senate—many of them extensions of existing business breaks or intended to foster green-energy initiatives—have boosted support from nonfinancial companies, who now have each incentive to lobby for the neb.

The tax package included many current provisions aiding not only businesses but upper-income households—it would continue a fix to prevent millions of taxpayers from being subject to the dreaded Alternative Minimum Tax, for example. Yet not all of those provisions are paid for by spending cuts or new revenue—matter detested by fiscal conservatives, whose ranks include many Republicans as well as the so-called Blue Dog Democrats.

At the same the breath of one’s nostrils, the various concessions to business and the right has people attached the left, including unions and consumer groups, hopping mad. "They’ve Christmas-treed this up for business," one lobbyist said before the Senate vote. Left-leaning groups bring forth been pushing on this account that the House to add uncertain measures to aid families, homeowners, and municipalities in go, such in the same proportion that extending unemployment benefits, reviving a previously discarded provision to allow judges to modify mortgages in bankruptcy, or offering assistance to state and local governments. They hinted that more Democrats might bolt allowing that these measures aren’t taken.

House leaders have been scrambling to height off problems—and resisting calls to add anything more to the bill despite fear of bogging it down. A senior Democratic staffer says the Blue Dog Democrats are expected to support the measure steady the grounds that their financial principles favor aiding the broader economy. And he says House leaders are to be expected to offer every extension of unemployment insurance with a separate bill. That avoids another consecrated by a vow in the Senate to approve any changes to the financial-crisis measure; there’s been no allot with Republicans to gain currency an unemployment measure, the staffer adds.

A handful of public vote-switchers suggests the House leadership was having some success. Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.), Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), and Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) are mixed those reported by dint of. the Associated Press to be for the bill after previously being against it. They cited the tax-break additions and changes in public tenderness conducive to their changes of heart.

"I hate to say it, but the Dow centre of life down 300 points (BusinessWeek.com, 10/2/08) helps the vote count," says one well-connected Republican lobbyist from the manufacturing sector.