Third time is the charm - revised bailout bill more likely to squeak by on Thursday

The third time is the charm. The Senate will take a shot at revising The Big Bailout Bill with an increase in the FDIC insurance limit and some other goodies and the bill is quite likely to pass when voted on tomorrow night. Then on Thursday the angst-ridden House will vote on the revised bill, maybe with even more gimmicks to soothe the holdouts, and that third vote on the same basic bill will then probably pass by a modest margin. There is a general feeling that a fair number of House members are feeling deep remorse for the mistake they made on Monday. But from my perspective, this is a classic Washington ploy, with the first vote basically being a show to give members an opportunity to vent and grandstand for the people back home, and then later they can vote on a revised bill and change their minds and then simply make up some lame excuse about how they tried to fight the bill, as evidenced by their first vote, but they had little choice but to eventually go along. And this time they have The One's blessing and even insistence that it is the right thing to do.

If the House does decide to festoon the revised bill with goodies, that would mean that a conference commitee would have to resolve the differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill, but such a committee is hand-picked by the leadership and is unlikely to do anything to slow the bill down.

In short, there is now a high probability that A Big Bailout Bill will in fact be passed this week and maybe even signed into law by Pesident Bush on the weekend.

-- Jack Krupansky