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Pelosi Studying Details of Bailout

As she works to shore up Democratic votes for the $700 billion financial rescue package, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) acknowledged that she doesn’t know all of the provisions in the Senate’s revised version.

“I’m studying the bill right now, but the fact is it doesn’t eliminate the overriding attitude that we all have, that we must act, that we must intervene,” she said at a news conference Thursday afternoon. “We have to send a message of confidence to the markets, and we must protect the taxpayer.”

Pelosi said she was assessing how many Democrats would vote for the bill — an effort she said “seems to be going well.”

But she also said some Members haven’t yet closely studied the bailout bill after the Senate passed its revised version Wednesday night.

“They saw what happened in the Senate last night, but now they’re getting a closer look,” she said. “I’m optimistic that we will take a vote to the floor.”

Asked if changes to the bill were likely — especially considering a Senate amendment to extend tax breaks without offsets — Pelosi indicated that fiddling with the bill could take too long.

“This isn’t our last act,” she said. “We will have time to do more. That’s what I told Democrats and that’s what I told Republicans.”

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