Correction: Rejection of bailout proposal might be best medicine for spoiled industry

You have to give brave Congress members on both sides of the aisle credit for resisting the urge to act quickly - and the pressure from the Bush administration and the banking industry - and rejecting a questionable bill to bail out the bankers.

The House of Representatives voted 228-205 to kill the hastily cobbled package that would take more than $700 billion from taxpayers and give it to financial brokers whose lack of discretion with the billions they manage has left them drifting in troubled waters.

To his credit, U.S. Rep. Solomon P. Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi, who is normally not known for his frugality with taxpayers' money, voted against the bill. "I could not support a measure that used our taxpayers' money to bail out the reckless actions of these corporations," he said in a written statement to The Brownsville Herald.

Rep. Ruben Hinojosa, D-Mercedes, voted for the bailout.

The news sent stock prices tumbling again, with the Dow average closing Monday nearly 800 points below Friday's closing value.

Interestingly, despite the signs of panic on Wall Street and the administration's hard-sell tactics on Capitol Hill, the Americans don't seem to be buying the pitch. Protesters have taken to the streets in several U.S. cities to voice their opposition to the bailout, and enough of their representatives have been willing for a change to listen to their constituents rather than the lobbyists trying to push the bill.

And that's a good thing. Even this package already has been laden with sweet deals and earmarks. J.P. Morgan Chase, for example, last week bought up the assets of failing insurer Washington Mutual for $1.9 billion. Under the bailout package JPM could resell WAMU to the government at a profit, entirely funded by U.S. taxpayers.

We applaud those who have not been swayed by the panic selling in the stock market. All that shows is the breadth of companies engaging in high-risk practices, which have started to cave in because more people than expected have fallen to foreclosure. Other industries continue to be strong, although the current credit crisis might have affected the ability of some of them to borrow money. Many of these industries can simply delay expansion plans, reduce inventory and employ other means to operate solely on current revenues.

As for Wall Street? We can think of this in terms Federal Reserve chiefs Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan have used in the past: this is simply the market correcting itself. It's worth noting that while Monday's drop in traded value fell by record dollar amounts, it is hardly the greatest selloff in terms of percentage of value. The market had endured greater hits, and it will endure this.

And, to their credit, Americans for the most part aren't panicking. Neither should members of Congress, who we hope will not be swayed by the alarmist brayings of the very financial brokers who put themselves in this trouble in the first place. Many of them appear to have the kind of arrogance shown Monday by Gordon Charlop of Rosenblatt Securities.

"How could this have happened?" Charlop, the financial firm's managing director, said to The Associated Press. "The bailout not going through sends a signal that Congress isn't willing to do their part."

Perhaps the financier is used to seeing Congress kowtow to industry bullies and lobbyists. Lawmakers best "do their part," however, by representing the wishes and interests of the people they represent. It's refreshing if not surprising that more than half of our representatives have sided with the people instead of the politickers, especially as re-election campaigns are heating up.

Let's hope they continue to side with the people, and with reason.