Oct 3, 2008 9:14 am US/Eastern
Cummings Vote Is Crucial To Passing Bailout Bill
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Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings' vote is seen as crucial as Congress looks to pass a bailout bill.
CBS
All eyes are on one local congressman and how he will vote Friday.
Days after members of the United States Senate voted to pass a bailout bill similar to the one House members rejected on Monday, attention turns back to whether the House will now pass the bill
Mary Bubala reports Maryland Congressman Elijah Cummings' vote is now seen as crucial. He is scheduled to announce his vote sometime Friday morning.
Congressman Cummings has been swamped with calls from colleagues asking him to change his vote from 'no' to 'yes.' One of those calls came from Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama. But Cummings still says he believes the bill must be tweaked.
His is one of about a dozen votes which needs to be switched in order for the bill to pass.
"I understand the urgency of the moment. It is a very urgent situation, but urgency does not necessarily bring good results if you're not deliberative at the same time," said Cummings.
If you ask the men who drove up to Baltimore to talk to Cummings, they'll tell you passing the measure is the only way to protect everyone.
"This is jobs, this is people buying homes, this is people buying cars. This is intrinsic, it's what makes Baltimore viable and great, and it's all going to go away if we have this collapse," said Drew Greenblatt.
Cummings spoke with
WJZ after he rejected the previous bailout plan. He even introduced new legislation which adds more safeguards for current homeowners and takes power away from Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.
"People are finding they are going through foreclosure, or about to go through foreclosure, and we want to prevent that," said Cummings. "If you're going to spend $700 billion and give it to Mr. Paulson to administer almost unilaterally, you've got to have some control there from the Congress."
But the newly passed Senate bill does not focus on either foreclosures or Paulson. Cummings calls those crucial points that must be addressed.
"There's not one dime in this, not one dime, for people who live in Baltimore, Howard County, Baltimore County facing foreclosure. Not a dime," said Cummings.
He doesn't intend to change his stance, even with a newfound sense of urgency, and with the eyes of the world upon Washington.
"When you have the head of the Federal Reserve coming out and saying everything is going to be horrible with a certain piece of legislation they almost, in many ways, make the problem self-fulfilling," said Cummings.
The Congressman feels the pressure and says he wants to pass a bailout bill, but only when the time and details are right.
"We have to act deliberately. These are tax payers dollars, $700 billion of them, to be spent probably within the next 120 days by one person," he said.
The House is expected to vote on the bill Friday.
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