Sep 26, 2008 12:16 pm US/Eastern
Frank Rips House GOP For Deal Breakdown
WASHINGTON (WBZ) ―
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House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Barney Frank talks with reporters Sept. 18 in Washington.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Rep. Barney Frank declared Friday that an agreement on legislation to relieve a spreading financial crisis depends on House Republicans "dropping this revolt" against President Bush.
Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, said leading Democrats on Capitol Hill were shocked by the level of divisiveness that surfaced at a White House meeting Thursday, not long after key congressional players of both parties declared they'd achieved the broad outlines of an agreement on a bill implementing the administration's proposed $700 billion bailout plan.
Frank, D-Mass., said he did not think that Democrats were going to see a substantially different proposal from the plan the administration has been trying to sell to lawmakers and which had been the focal point of closed-door talks for days. He called the rival proposal being pushed by House conservative Republicans "an ambush plan."
Participants in a meeting late Thursday afternoon that Bush had at the White House with congressional leaders and presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama said it descended into arguments.
"I didn't know I was going to be the referee for an internal GOP ideological civil war," Frank, D-Mass., said on CBS's "
The Early Show."
President Bush told Congress Friday it must "rise to the occasion" and pass legislation bailing out the struggling financial system, and leading lawmakers arranged to resume difficult negotiations.
Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, struggling to keep an emerging bipartisan accord on the plan from imploding, was set to attend the restart of talks at midday. House Republicans said they would send a top leader to the closed-door session.
(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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