Congressman Hodes and Challenger Horn React to Bailout Bill Failure

Congressman Paul Hodes says the plan to bailout Wall Street was flawed from the start – even with last minute bipartisan negotiations on the bill.
Hodes says he voted against it because it fails to adequately protect New Hampshire taxpayers, and gives the Treasury too much power.
3:55 1a this plan gave an enormous amount of discretion to the treasury secretary and while oversight was added, it was after the fact oversight, which essentially meant that 350 billion dollars would be gone, before any oversight could be exercised.
He wanted to make sure that homeowners in foreclosure and filing for bankruptcy could seek protection to work out mortgage loans.
4:47 while this plan said that the services would be encouraged to work out the loans there was no real forum established for that to happen
Hodes also says he heard from an enormous amount of constituents who overwhelmingly opposed the plan.
His opponent in the Second District, Jennifer Horn says a federal bailout was a step in the wrong direction.
If she were in Congress, she says she would have sided with the majority and opposed it – but for different reasons.
3:34 there’s been a tremendous effort put into this and I applaud that I’m pleased by some results from the effort, at its core, bailouts not the right answer, we don’t need government interfering in the market 3:58
She says when government tries to manipulate the free market, it costs money and jobs.
She says other ideas weren’t given a chance.
4:20 what we should be focusing on is how we did we get to this position to begin with, why are we here, what led us to this, this bill does not address the core cause of what brought us to this point to begin with 4:36
Horn wants Congress to come up with more of what she called free market approaches to the credit crisis.
Hodes says he’s confident that the country will get through it and that Congress will come up with an alternative plan.
For NHPR news, I'm Amy Quinton