The no vote was a big blow to George Bush, Hank Paulson, the treasury secretary, and Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman. They gave dire warnings of the consequences of an unchecked crisis, in hopes of persuading Congress to approve an unusually aggressive and early fiscal intervention. (It took many more years for a systemic response to widespread failures of American savings and loan banks in the 1980s). But because the intervention is relatively early, voters have yet to see much impact from the crisis on their lives. “On Monday morning…the sun came up and a lot of people went to work, and [they] couldn’t understand what this panic was in Washington,” Paul Kanjorski, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, told Mr Paulson last week. It was far easier for voters to relate to $700 billion of their taxes being spent on a mess in Wall Street.

對喬治•布什，財長漢克•保爾森，聯儲出席本•伯南克而言，否決票是一大打擊。他 們曾對不遏制危機的后果給出警告，寄希望于說服國會通過此項非比一般地積極地也是早期地財政干預。（上世紀80年代，對美國儲蓄和貸款銀行普遍破產的一個 系統化處理耗費了許多年）。但是因為此次干預相對要早，選民們沒有意識到這場危機對他們的生活的重大影響。賓夕法尼亞州民主黨人保羅·坎喬斯基（Paul Kanjorski）上周對保爾森說道：“周一清晨“““太陽升起，人們趕去上班，他們無法理解華盛頓在恐慌什么。”對選民們來說，認同這7000億美元——他們納的稅被浪費在華爾街的廢物上倒是更為輕而易舉的事情。

Party leaders largely agreed with the diagnosis, as did the presidential candidates of both parties. But polls showed that voters were split; constituent phone calls and e-mails ran heavily against the bill. Administration officials and party leaders are back at work trying to find a way to get at least 12 members to switch their vote; the betting both on Wall Street and in Washington, DC, is they will succeed. (Passage in the Senate is considered less problematic.) But it should not be taken for granted. Without amendments, anyone who changes his vote will face fierce criticism when he seeks re-election. Any amendments to appease Republicans could cost Democratic support, and vice-versa.

政黨領袖們很大程度上同意對此次金融危機的診斷，連兩黨的總統候選人也贊同。但是民調顯示了選民立場的分裂：反對救市方案的游說電話和郵件紛沓至來。執政官員和政黨領袖重新回到此項工作上來，試圖使至少12個反對成員改弦易轍；華盛頓和華爾街都預計他們能夠辦到。（在參議院通過問題不大）但這不應當被看作是他們就欣然接受。倘若對該方案未加修訂，任何人改變自己原先立場都會在其再次面臨選舉時（尋求連任時）受到嚴苛的批評。另一方面，任何迎合共和黨的修訂都會損耗民主黨的支持，反之亦然。

“You can’t let one day’s trading dictate public policymaking,” argues Scott Garrett, a New Jersey Republican and member of the Republican Study Committee, a block of conservative members who led opposition to the bill. “The market’s going to be a factor, but we’re looking at the larger picture.” Recalcitrant Republicans would rather see a programme to sell insurance to banks against mortgage defaults, rather than buying assets from them. The Treasury strongly opposes this approach. But there may be other grounds for compromise, such as relaxing mark-to-market accounting or extending the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation’s guarantee of a bank’s liabilities to more than just the first $100,000 of each customer’s deposits. Other proposals include giving banks more time to deduct mortgage-related operating losses from future taxable profits, letting companies repatriate foreign profits tax-free and improving the tax treatment of losses sustained by banks on their holdings of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac stock.

“你不能讓單日交易量來指示公共政策制定,” 科特•蓋瑞特（Scott Garrett）主張，他是新澤西州共和黨人，也是共和黨研究委員會的成員，這個委員會由一批領導反對此項救市方案的保守人士組成。“市場將是一個主要問 題，但是我們著眼于全局。”執拗的共和黨人寧愿看到一個對銀行出售保險以抵御抵押違約損失的計劃，也不愿意從銀行手里收購資產。財政部強烈反對這種方法。 但是或許有其他妥協的余地，比如放松按市價調整的會計或者提高美國聯邦存款保險公司對銀行債務的擔保，突破原先的每個客戶存款擔保10萬美元的上限。其他建議包括給銀行更長的時間從未來的應稅收入中扣除目前抵押貸款業務的相關損失；讓公司得以免稅把在國外所得利潤存回美國；并且改善在持有房地美和房利美的股票方面，銀行所蒙受的損失的稅收待遇。

For their part, more Democrats might back the proposal if the administration also agreed to more fiscal stimulus, in particular public-works spending, or taking any profits on the TARP to low-income housing. A deal may be possible, but time is short: legislators are itching to return to their districts to campaign, and investors’ appetite for risk is ebbing fast. The House is not expected to reconvene before Thursday, to accommodate the Jewish new year.

從民主黨這邊來看，如果執政當局還同意更多的財政刺激，特別是公共項目開銷或是從 問題資產救援計劃（TARP）中提取任何利潤給低收入住房的話，或許會有更多民主黨成員支持這項救市提議。協議達成或許可能，但時間緊迫：立法者（議員 們）急于返回其選區參加競選，同時投資者的風險胃口迅速萎縮。周二之前眾議院不可能重新召集議事，因為這期間包括了猶太新年日。（譯者注：很多議員要趕回 去過節）

The House vote also represented a stinging rejection of John McCain, the Republican nominee. Mr McCain suspended his campaign last week for two days, citing the financial crisis, and flew to Washington, DC, to help craft a solution to it. His main task was to persuade reluctant House Republicans to back their own president. In the event they voted against the deal made by their own leadership by two to one. The humiliation meted out to Mr McCain is intense.

眾議院的選票也代表了一種對共和黨候選人約翰•麥凱恩的無情拒絕。麥凱恩先生上周 稱是為金融危機而暫停了兩天的競選，并且親自飛往華盛頓，來幫助達成一個針對救市計劃的解決方案。他的主要任務是說服執拗的共和黨人來支持他們共和黨自己 的總統。結果，他們以2比1投票反對他們自己的領導階層制定的計劃。麥凱恩先生蒙受的羞辱是相當強烈的。

Amid the efforts to put the deal back together, some small hope remains that not all is lost. What is unlikely to help is the atmosphere of bitterness and recrimination that is pervading Capitol Hill. With some justification, the Democrats are aggrieved to find that they supported Mr Bush’s bill while his own party did not. But the Republicans blame the Democratic speaker, Nancy Pelosi, for making a stupidly partisan speech shortly before the vote in which she poured scorn on the Republicans she is trying to court. A lot of bridges will have to be built in a short span of time.

使這項救市方案達成還存一線希望。譏諷的氛圍和遍布國會的互相指責是于是無補的。情有可原，民主黨會憤憤不平，因為他們發現自己支持布什的救市方案而布什自己的共和黨卻反對。但是共和黨人譴責身為民主黨的眾議院議長南希-佩羅西，指責她在投票開始前幾分鐘發表了一個愚蠢的從黨派立場出發的講話，在講話中她譏諷她要試圖拉攏說服的共和黨人。短時間內，各方間必須要建立大量溝通。