Clyburn: House Bailout Vote on Friday
House leaders are planning to take up the Senate financial rescue bill on Friday, House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Wednesday.
The House will likely receive the reworked $700 billion package from the Senate around noon on Thursday, at which point it will head to the Rules Committee, Clyburn said on MSNBC.
“We wont be able to vote on this until Friday,” Clyburn said. “Hopefully, we can have some debate, maybe on the rule tomorrow, as well as maybe some other bill, but we wont be able to vote on it until Friday.”
A Democratic leadership aide also confirmed that that “we are moving the Senate bill likely on Friday.”
Meanwhile, Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) revealed that the House Democratic leadership agreed with the Senates effort to bring the $700 billion bailout proposal to the floor Wednesday evening.
Heading into the Senate Democratic policy luncheon Wednesday afternoon, Baucus said that Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) consented to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reids (D-Nev.) decision to have the Senate take up the retooled rescue plan and then send it to the House.
House leadership signed off on the bill, he said.
Pelosi and Hoyer earlier appeared chilly to the idea that the Senate was attaching the tax-extenders legislation along with an alternative minimum tax provision to the bailout proposal.
The Senate has made a decision about how to proceed and what can pass that body. The Senate will vote tomorrow night and the Congress will work its will, Pelosi said in a statement Tuesday night.