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- BUSINESS, Page 55Business NotesBAILOUTSMidnight Budgetry
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- Eager to flee Washington last week for a monthlong recess,
- Congress worked well past its deadline, arguing over how to
- finance a ten-year, $166 billion federal rescue plan for more
- than 500 insolvent savings and loans. The busted thrifts are
- losing about $20 million a day. When a compromise with the White
- House threatened to unravel Friday, it looked as if the
- lawmakers would leave town without solving the problem.
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- House leaders wanted to charge the $50 billion first-year
- cost of the program to the federal budget. President Bush had
- threatened to veto the legislation unless Congress agreed to
- keep most of the outlay off budget, a plan that Nebraska Senator
- James Exon called a "continuing grand scheme to fool the
- American taxpayer (about) the real cost of the bailout." Near
- midnight on Friday, Congress approved a compromise worked out
- with the White House in which only $20 billion of the program's
- costs will be charged to the budget. The Government will issue
- special 30-year bonds to raise the rest. President Bush is
- expected to sign the legislation this week.
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