McManus: Debt-limit delay in the real world

In 2008, as financial crisis threatened the U.S. banking system, President George W. Bush asked Congress to approve an emergency bailout. Leaders of both parties blessed the idea; both presidential candidates — Barack Obama and John McCain — endorsed it. But conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats rebelled, the House defeated the bill — and the stock market plummeted in real time during the roll call. It took the prospect of economic meltdown to get the House to reverse itself and approve Bush's Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Doyle McManus

July 1, 2011