US Bailout plan rejected - supporters scramble

US Bailout plan rejected - supporters scramble The fate of the government's $700 billion financial bailout plan was thrown into doubt Monday as the House rejected the controversial measure. The next steps were unclear. The abrupt defeat left the Bush administration and congressional leaders scrambling to figure out whether to renegotiate the bill and introduce it again as soon as Thursday or to try other options. Stock markets reacted violently. Investors who had been counting on the rescue plan's passage sent the Dow Jones industrial average down well over 700 points. The stock gauge closed 778 points lower - nearly 7%. The measure, which is designed to get battered lending markets working normally again, needed 218 votes for passage. But it came up 13 votes short of that target, with a final vote of 228 to 205 against. Two-thirds of Democrats and one-third of Republicans voted for the measure. President Bush, who earlier in the day said he was confident the bill would pass, said he was "very disappointed" by the House vote. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, speaking at the White House, said he will continue to "use all the tools available to protect" the economy. Republican leaders, who had pushed their reluctant members to vote for the bill, pointed the finger for the failure at a speech given Monday by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Pelosi, speaking on the House floor, had blamed the nation's economic problems on "failed Bush economic policies." House minority leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, said after the vote that passage would have been possible if it had not been for Pelosi's "partisan speech." Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., one of the main congressional negotiators, dismissed the GOP claim that Pelosi's speech was responsible for Republicans voting against the bill. "Because somebody hurt their feelings, they decided to hurt the country," Frank said. "That's not plausible."