Three of four Bay Area-based members of Congress change votes on Wall Street bailout

Three of four members of Congress from the Bay Area reversed their votes on the $700 billion Wall Street bailout package approved by the House on Friday.

Citing improvements in the rescue bill, U.S. Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Oakland), Lynn Woolsey (D-San Rafael) and Mike Thompson (D-Napa) all decided in the end to support the controversial bailout that bit the Congressional dust during its first vote Monday.

Only Congressman Pete Stark (D-Fremont) held his ground on the bill, saying it was a bad deal for the American people.

Friday's vote saw the measure pass by a comfortable 263 to 171.

Here is Lee's speech from the House floor, explaining her reasoning:

"Madame Speaker, I think we need to be honest about the bill before us. We should start by calling it what it is: a bailout.

We should be honest about how we got here: this administration's reckless deregulation policies and greed. We should be honest about the fact that we don't know whether or not this bill will work.

And we must be honest about the fact that we can't afford to risk the potential consequences of inaction. I spoke with our CA State Treasurer this week and he assured me that people will suffer greater pain, including cuts to critical state funded services, if we don't do something to stop the hemorrhaging.  

That is why I will support this bill today.

As a former small business owner, I understand that access to credit will make or break your business and without it people will lose jobs. 

I understand that with this bill's passage we will not magically turn the economy around, reverse the rise in unemployment or end the recession. But I must err on the side of caution so our seniors can have some confidence that their pensions are safe. And I hope that we will help prevent this financial crisis from exacting an even bigger toll on the everyday lives of our constituents.

 I am going to continue to keep fighting for meaningful foreclosure relief and the type of direct economic stimulus that we fought to include in this bill and that people need during these very difficult times.  And I have to say that I'm glad our fight helped slow this bill down.  Because the bill before us today is a better bill.  And thanks to our Speaker's leadership, we have a bill to extend Unemployment Insurance on the floor today. That is exactly the type of steps we need to take to help those in need and I urge the Senate to take it up immediately.

As Senator Obama said, "There will be time to punish those who set this fire, but now is the moment for us to come together and put the fire out. 

I join him in that effort and will vote for this flawed, but necessary legislation to address this pressing financial crisis. This is a difficult vote but I'm confident it is the right vote."

Stark kept his comments short and sweet. Here are his comments from the House floor:

"I will be voting no on this bill.  I recently read in the press that eight out of ten of my colleagues know nothing about economics or banking.  This bill shows that account is quite right. This bill does nothing but bail out Wall Street and large corporate America. It spends $800 billion that taxpayers will end up having to pay for and it does nothing for middle-income Americans. Is there a crisis in this country?  Yes there is.  But this is not the solution for those people who have been working and trying to pay their bills. There is not a crisis facing your average community bank which has no problem in liquidity.  There is not a crisis for your credit cards - endangering their ability to work. This rushed bailout package is nothing more than President Bush's Treasury Secretary Paulson's way to scare us as Colin Powell tried to scare us some years ago by saying if we didn't vote for an ill-conceived war, we'd see terrorists on the street. You're getting the same kind of misinformation now -- the same kind of rush to judgment -- to tell you that a crisis will occur.  It won't.  Vote no and let's come back and help work on a bill that will help all Americans."

Woolsey, in comments made after the vote, said the bailout was no "silver bullet" and that reversing her vote was, ultimately, the right thing to do:

"Today's vote is one of the most difficult that I have faced in my entire time in public office.  The American public deserves to know the truth about what's being proposed - that this is a short-term plug, not a silver bullet.  They deserve to know that this package, despite its $700 billion price tag, is the first step, not the last.

The economic crisis that we face is real, and it demands our immediate attention.  The reckless behavior by some on Wall Street and the deregulation so aggressively pushed by President Bush over the past eight years have led to a crisis in the credit markets that have driven consumer confidence into the ground.  Americans are worried about the state of our economy, and economists are now saying that the trouble in the financial markets has found its way onto Main Street.

As a result of this crisis, my own state of California now faces a budgetary situation so perilous that our public services are now threatened.  If California is unable to gain access to the credit that it needs it'll be unable to pay public servants such as teachers, police officers, and firemen.  Yesterday I spoke with CA Treasurer Bill Lockyer who reiterated how dangerous the current outlook is to California and to our local communities.  Today's bill alone will not solve this crisis, but I have no doubt of the consequences if we fail to pass it.

The new proposal includes several important changes to the House version, many of which are critically important to my district, such as providing AMT tax relief to millions of middle class families, extending tax credits to create millions of green jobs, and providing a $1,000 child tax credit.  It also raises the FDIC insurance limits from $100,000 to $250,000, which will help small community banks by reassuring their customers that their money is safe and sound.  And in response to record unemployment numbers the House today had the opportunity to pass legislation extending unemployment insurance for millions of Americans caught up in this economic downturn.

Despite these changes, the legislation today isn't as comprehensive as I'd like.  It fails to provide protections for the millions of working families who are facing foreclosure and bankruptcy, and it gives too little oversight to the taxpayers who are being asked to foot the bill for President Bush's mistake.

However, despite its flaws, I realize that the passage of this legislation is essential to the short-term economic stability of California, and to stopping the hemorrhaging in our financial markets.   While this bill will not solve the crisis we face, if it's a choice between supporting it and doing nothing, I will err on the side of caution and vote for it."

Comments or the text of any floor speech from Thompson was not immediately available Friday afternoon.