The U.S. Senate has approved H.R.1424, the Emergency Economic Stablization Act, by a vote of 74-25. The bill is now up for consideration once again by the House of Representatives.
According to its official summary, this legislation ‘provides authority for the federal government to purchase and insure certain types of troubled assets for the purposes of providing stability to and preventing disruption in the economy and financial system and protecting taxpayers, to amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide incentives for energy production and conservation, to extend certain expiring provisions, to provide individual income tax relief, and for other purposes.’
The approved version of the bill included several changes designed garner additional needed votes from both Republicans and Democrats. Revisions include the addition of a series of tax breaks and an increase in the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. insurance limit from $100,000 to $250,000.
These changes raised the cost of the bill by over $100 billion and expanded its full text to a total of 451 pages, the Los Angeles Times notes.
Many taxpayers who were initially opposed to this financial rescue have begun to view it as a needed effort to improve the state of the economy. ‘An end to the crisis is now in sight,’ Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., stated after the vote, as quoted in the Boston Globe. ‘This is not a piece of legislation for lower Manhattan. It's a piece of legislation for all Americans.’
‘The legislation that the Senate passed tonight is the product of thoughtful and deliberate bipartisan cooperation, and is a vast improvement over the blank check that the Administration sought just days ago,’ adds Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.
Sources: U.S. Senate, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, Office Of Sen. Chris Dodd