13WHAM - Slaughter On Bailout

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13WHAM - Slaughter On Bailout

On her couch in Fairport on Tuesday, Congresswoman Louise Slaughter (D, Fairport) explained why she voted "Yes" on the failed bailout bill.

"I can guarantee you that sitting here right now that that was not a bad bill," Slaughter said. "It was a good bill from the taxpayer's point of view and that's exactly what we wanted to do."

Many Americans wonder why the vote failed. Slaughter blames Republican resistance to regulation and oversight for the problem, and for the failure to resolve it.

"Going back to Ronald Reagan's famous thing, 'Government is not the answer, it's the problem,'" Slaughter said of Republicans' arguments opposing the bailout. "Well, it's always the answer when they get into a problem; let me put it that way."

Slaughter feels a government answer is needed now, but she doesn't fault taxpayers for being angry about it.

"I don't blame them for being mad, you have no idea. I can't gauge my anger; I'm so furious," Slaughter said. "We should've known this was coming, but there was no oversight."

Her neighbor down the street, Jim Franzen, is also angry thinking about his reduced retirement funds. He supports the bailout.

"Like most people I'm angry, but I'm not so angry, I'm willing to cut my own throat," Franzen said.

He thinks the taxpayer sacrifice of roughly $2,500 per American is necessary.

"Now most of us, especially in Fairport around this neighborhood, have lost a lot more than that due to the market the last couple of months since this started," he said.

But Franzen doesn't want anger to dictate decisions about their investments.

"I'm willing to risk or spend a thousand bucks to save many times that in my retirement," he said.

House leaders are calling Congress back to Washington D.C. on Thursday to begin a second round of negotiations on the bailout proposal.

Slaughter also said a house investigations committee will begin hearings next week to determine how we got to this point and if anyone is to blame.

However, Slaughter said, investigations should take a backseat to solving the apparent deadlock on Capitol Hill over the bailout.

For more on Slaughter's take on the bailout bill and what has happened in Washington over the last week, watch the raw video of her interview attached to this report.

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