This may be the most important vote since the authorization of the Iraq war, and in many respects, the atmosphere is similar. Congressional leaders have been churned up by a worsening economic picture and the drama of last Thursday’s emergency meeting with Henry Paulson and Ben Bernanke, where lawmakers were told there was a serious risk of massive failures within days and that casualties could go beyond the banking industry to large “brand-name companies.” Senator Christopher Dodd described it as “as sobering a meeting as any of us have ever attended in our careers here.” 

Furthermore, this is an election year, and Congress is set to go home and resume campaigning at the end of the week. So a plan to save the economy and bailout the financial firms that got us into this mess will be hammered out very hastily in the heat of emotion. And, like the Iraq war vote, decisions made this week will haunt us for years. 

The amount of money at stake is staggering. $700 billion is more than the cost of the war in Iraq to date, more than the entire 2009 budget for medicaid and medicare, more than the 2009 budget for social security, and just under the 2009 military budget. It represents $2000 for every man, woman, and child in the country--above and beyond what we already pay for the actual services of the federal government. And for what? To keep us all from being damaged even more than we have already by the irresponsible business practices of the financial industry we are bailing out. 

The great majority of our leaders failed us in the Iraq authorization vote. They made political decisions based on the emotion of the moment. Let’s hope they do better this time. If this deal does not go far enough to reign in the unfettered business practices that got us here, then our leaders must have the courage to walk away. This time, the administration cannot be given a blank check. The deal must provide strong oversight and powerful safeguards against future crises, or we must be willing to say, “No deal.”