29일 오후 1시반(한국시간 30일 오전 2시반)에 시작된 미국 하원의 표결에서 '긴급경제안정법(Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008)'으로 이름이 붙은 구제금융법안이 반대 228표, 찬성 205표로 부결됐다.

민주당에서는 반대보다 찬성이 많았지만 공화당에서는 찬성보다 반대가 2배가량 많았다.

공화당 하원 의원들 중 상당수는 그동안 "이 법안이 월스트리트의 실패를 납세자들의 돈으로 처리하는 것"이라며 반대해왔다.

당초 미 정부는 구제금융법안이 통과되면 총 7000억 달러 가운데 우선 2500억 달러를 시장에 투입해 금융회사들의 부실 자산을 인수하고 1000억 달러는 대통령의 요청으로 즉시 투입할 예정이었다. 나머지 3500억 달러에 대해선 미 의회가 프로그램이 제대로 작동하지 않는다고 판단할 경우 추가 결의안을 통해 집행을 막을 수 있도록 돼 있다.

미국 CNBC 방송은 "의회 지도자들이 구제금융법안이 하원에서 부결된 만큼 해당 법안이 의회에서 처리될 수 있는 방법은 없다고 말했다"고 전했다. 이에 따라 미 행정부는 개별 금융회사를 지원하는 방식을 택하거나 금융위기를 극복하기 위한 다른 방법을 찾아야 할 것이라고 미국 언론들은 전했다.

이날 구제금융법안이 하원에서 부결되면서 미국 뉴욕증시가 폭락했다. 이날 오후 1시 55분 현재 뉴욕증권거래소(NYSE)에서 다우존스 산업평균 지수는 지난 주말 종가보다 390.36포인트(3.5%) 하락한 10,735.63을 기록하고 있다. 스탠더드앤드푸어스(S&P) 500 지수도 62.50포인트(5.1%) 떨어진 1,151.66을 나타냈고 나스닥 종합지수는 2,062.15로 전주말보다 120.39포인트(5.5%) 떨어졌다.

하원 표결이 진행되는 동안 부결로 기울어지자 다우존스 산업평균 지수는 장중 한때 700포인트가 넘는 사상 최대폭의 급락세를 보이기도 했다.

뉴욕=신치영특파원 higgledy@donga.com

장택동기자 will71@donga.com

▼뉴욕증시 ‘멜팅 다운’…S&P500 시총 7천억달러 날아가▼

미 하원에서 29일 구제금융법안이 부결되면서 뉴욕증시도 함께 녹아내렸다.

이날 하루 만에 뉴욕증권거래소에서 다우존스산업평균지수가 777.68포인트(7%)라는 사상 최대의 폭락을 기록하면서 멜팅 다운(melting down)에 가까운 패닉 현상을 겪었다.

이와 함께 시장의 시가총액도 이날 엄청나게 많이 줄어들었다.

특히 스탠더드 앤 푸어스(S&P)에 따르면 S&P500 지수의 시가총액 가운데 자그마치 7천억달러가 이날 허공 속으로 날아가 온데간데없이 사라졌다.

금융위기 대책을 놓고 제기된 정치적 혼선이 순식간에 빚어낸 손실치고는 너무도 엄청났다.

이날 시가총액 감소 규모는 사상 최대 구제금융이라는 이번 구제금융법안을 통해 투입하려던 7천억달러 만큼이나 컸기 때문이다.

S&P500지수는 이날 에너지와 제조업 관련 기업들의 주가가 폭락하면서 106.59포인트(8.8%)가 떨어져 1,106.42로 추락했다.

미 하원을 통과할 것으로 기대됐던 7천억달러 규모의 규제금융법안이 좌초하면서 시장의 불확실성과 불안을 한껏 키우면서 투매를 불러와 팔자는 주문만 한꺼번에몰리면서 주가가 바닥 없는 추락이 빚어낸 결과다.

이는 시장의 신뢰 상실이 주는 충격파가 앞으로 얼마나 더 커질 수 있는지 그리고 금융시장과 경제 전반에 미치는 파급 효과가 얼마나 될지를 조금이나마 가늠할 수 있게 하는 대목이다.

투자전문가인 마크 그로즈는 이날 마켓워치에 "구제금융법안이 적어도 불확실성을 낮춰 줄 것으로 기대됐다"면서 "그런데 법안이 부결되면서 불확실성을 키워 시장에 두려움에 사로잡히게 했다"고 말했다.

(워싱턴=연합뉴스)

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다음은 워싱턴포스트  http://www.washingtonpost.com 에 있는

기사입니다.

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In a narrow vote, the House today rejected the most sweeping government intervention into the nation's financial markets since the Great Depression, refusing to grant the Treasury Department the power to purchase up to $700 billion in the troubled assets that are at the heart of the U.S. financial crisis.

The 228-205 vote amounted to a stinging rebuke to the Bush administration and Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr., and was sure to sow massive anxiety in world markets. Just 11 days ago, Paulson urged congressional leaders to quickly approve the bailout. He warned that inaction would lead to a seizure of credit markets and a virtual halt to the lending that allows Americans to acquire mortgages and other types of loans.

As it became apparent that the measure was heading to defeat, stock markets took a steep dive and stayed down. The Dow Jones industrial average closed down 777.68 points, recording a fall of nearly 7 percent and its largest closing point drop in history. The Standard & Poor's 500-stock index and the tech-heavy Nasdaq each lost about 9 percent.

Paulson said after a meeting with President Bush at the White House that he was "very disappointed" in today's vote but that he was committed to working out a solution with Congress.

"We've got much work to do, and this is much too important to simply let fail," he said. "We need to put something back together that works." He said the rescue plan he put forward "is a plan that works."

Bush also expressed disappointment. "We'll be working with . . . leaders of Congress on the way forward," he said. "Our strategy is to continue to address this economic situation head on."

The vote also sparked recriminations on the presidential campaign trail, with just 36 days left until the Nov. 4 election.

After a week of intense debate in both party caucuses, 95 Democrats and 133 Republicans opposed the bill just five weeks before they face voters in an election that is shaping up as a referendum on the economy; 140 Democrats and 65 Republicans supported the controversial measure.

Republican and Democratic House leaders later blamed the defeat of the bill on each other but vowed to continue working to produce legislation that could pass Congress. They did not say when this could happen.

GOP leaders put the onus on Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), asserting that she failed to bring on board 95 fellow Democrats who voted against the bill and charging that a "partisan" speech she delivered at the end of today's debate turned off many Republicans.

However, the Republican leaders said they would work to bring a new bill to a vote.

"Americans are angry, and so are my colleagues," House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) told reporters after the vote. "They don't want to have to vote for a bill like this." Now, he said, "we need to renew our efforts to find a solution that Congress can support."

Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), the minority whip, said, "We'd like to find a way to deliver enough Republican votes to make this happen."

Boehner charged that the bill could have passed today "had it not been for the partisan speech that the speaker gave on the floor of the House." He said her remarks "poisoned our conference" after some wary conservatives were already on the House floor.

"Some of them were reluctantly there anyway; it didn't take much to turn them off," Blunt said.

"We thought we had a dozen more votes," he said. "A bipartisan solution is only as good as the last person that throws a bomb into the room."

At the beginning of a floor speech urging support for the bill, Pelosi denounced the $700 billion price tag as "the costs of the Bush administration's failed economic policies -- policies built on budgetary recklessness, on an anything-goes mentality, with no regulation, no supervision, and no discipline in the system."

Democrats scoffed at the Republican effort to blame Pelosi.

"There is a terrible crisis affecting the American economy, we have come together on a bill to alleviate the crisis, and because somebody hurt their feelings they decide to punish the country," said Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee. He said he was "appalled" by this reaction and expressed incredulity at the "pettiness and hypersensitivity" of it.

Frank accused the Republicans of "covering up the embarrassment of not having the votes" that they said they would to help pass the bill. He challenged the GOP to "give me those 12 people's names, and I will go talk uncharacteristically nicely to them" to persuade them to vote in the best interests of the nation.

Pelosi maintained that Democrats "delivered on our side of the bargain" by getting 60 percent of House Democrats to support a bill that was built around the Bush administration's proposal, whereas 67 percent of House Republicans voted against it.

"The legislation has failed; the crisis has not gone away," she said. "We must work in a bipartisan way to have another bite at the apple."

Advisers to Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate, quickly circulated a quote from Steve Schmidt, the chief strategist for Republican candidate John McCain, in which Schmidt boasted Sunday that it was the senator from Arizona who had brokered a deal.

"What Senator McCain was able to do was to help bring all of the parties to the table, including the House Republicans, whose votes were needed to pass this," Schmidt said on "Meet the Press."

Just hours before the failed vote, McCain blasted Obama for not taking further steps to broker a deal. "I went to Washington last week to make sure that the taxpayers of Ohio and across this great country were not left footing the bill for mistakes made on Wall Street and evil and greed in Washington," McCain said this morning in Columbus.

McCain senior policy adviser Doug Holtz-Eakin later issued a statement blaming Obama and Pelosi for the bill's defeat. "This bill failed because Barack Obama and the Democrats put politics ahead of country," he said.

McCain subsequently went before the cameras during a campaign stop in Iowa and urged lawmakers to "go back to the drawing board" to solve the crisis.

"Senator Obama and his allies in Congress infused unnecessary partisanship in the process," he said. "Now is not the time to fix the blame. It's time to fix the problem."

Obama spokesman Bill Burton responded that "today's action in Congress as well as the angry and hyper-partisan statement released by the McCain campaign are exactly why the American people are disgusted with Washington." He called on Democrats and Republicans to "join together and act in a way that prevents an economic catastrophe."

In remarks in Colorado, Obama urged calm and called on Congress to now "step up to the plate" to get the bailout passed in the days ahead.

"Today, Democrats and Republicans in Washington have a responsibility to make sure an emergency rescue package is put forward that can at least stop the immediate problems," Obama said.

"There are going to be bumps and trials and tribulations and ups and downs before we get this rescue package done," he said. "It's important for the American public and the markets to stay calm, because things are never smooth in Congress, and understand it will get done. We are going to make sure that emergency package is put together because it is required for us to stabilize the markets."

Obama added: "I'm convinced that we are going to get there, but it's going to be a little rocky. It's sort of like flying into Denver; you know you're going to land, but it's not always fun going over those mountains."

Leaders in both parties said negotiations could result in a new vote, but it was unclear whether that would be a new version of the legislation. The House and Senate are both out of session for at least the next two days to observe the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah.

Republicans said they knew that they had little support heading into the vote.

"I wasn't overwhelmingly surprised by the outcome," Blunt said.

"We're trying to be constructive, that's all I can say," said Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), Blunt's deputy vote counter.

Democrats appeared stunned by the lack of GOP votes for the deal. "We're going to have to talk about it in a rational way," said Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), the majority leader.

Global markets have followed the congressional negotiations closely since Paulson's dire warnings to congressional leaders in a Sept. 18 nighttime meeting in Pelosi's offices. As debate began today, news broke that Citigroup was purchasing another troubled bank, Wachovia, and an hour into the debate the Dow Jones industrial average had dropped by 285 points.

The bailout plan would have allowed Paulson to spend up to $700 billion to relieve faltering banks and other firms of bad assets backed by home mortgages, which are falling into foreclosure at record rates. Paulson, and his successor in the next administration, would have given the government broad latitude to purchase any assets from any firms at any price and to assemble a team of individuals and institutions to manage them. Paulson and others hoped to contain a crisis that already has caused the failure or forced the rescue of a half-dozen major Wall Street firms and unnerved markets around the world.

Before the debate started, Bush issued a final public plea urging lawmakers to support the plan, acknowledging that the vote will be "difficult" in the face of opposition from taxpayers and voters, but necessary to protect the economy. "A vote for this bill is a vote to prevent economic damage to you and your community," Bush said, attempting to undercut arguments that the proposed legislation bolsters Wall Street at taxpayers' expense. "This is a bold bill that will keep the crisis in our financial system from spreading through our economy."

Frank said no lawmaker wants to approve such a large bailout that was made necessary by the mistakes of Wall Street financiers and the mortgage industry, but inaction risked a more widespread financial meltdown. If nothing is done, he said, "the consequences will be much more severe."

Democratic and Republican leaders frantically pushed for votes this morning among their rank-and-file members to assure passage. During early morning votes on other noncontroversial matters, Pelosi hurried around the chamber floor, button-holing rank-and-file members, asking for their support.

Speaking on the floor of the House, in the final minutes before the close vote, Pelosi tried to assure her most liberal colleagues that further bailout hearings and legislation would come next year. Knowing that her party was fearful of how many Republicans would support the bill, Pelosi noted the bipartisan talks over the last week and the pledges made among both side's leaders to rally support. "I know that we will live up to our side of the bargain, I hope the Republicans will, too," she said.

On Sunday, Blunt, a lead negotiator and the GOP's top vote counter, hauled the nearly 30 retiring Republicans into his office to plead for what may be their final vote in office, warning that it will shape their legacy. James Nussle, the director of Bush's Office and Management and Budget and a former House member, worked the Capitol's halls and the House cloakroom in search of votes, cautioning beforehand of a very narrow vote.

Leaders met strong resistance from a liberal wing that opposed bailing out Wall Street's corporate executives and a conservative wing that denounced the measure as an abandonment of free-market principles.

Arguing that the country was on a "slippery slope toward socialism," Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.) urged his colleagues today to oppose the bill because of the "unintended consequences" to come. "If we lose our ability to fail, we will soon lose our ability to succeed. If we bail out risky behavior, we will soon see even riskier behavior," said Hensarling, the leader of a conservative caucus.

"It's not sustainable and we know it won't solve the underlying problem," said Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), likening the proposal to the Bush administration's "surge" of troops into the Iraq war last year.

Many lawmakers likened the vote as the equivalent of a war resolution or a presidential impeachment. Their speeches invoked 19th-century Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky and King Henry.

The House vote had been regarded as the most risky, because restive Republicans balked at the emerging proposal last week at a White House summit with Bush. And Democrats warned that dozens of their members, hailing from poor and liberal districts, would never endorse such a bailout.

But the Saturday negotiations produced a few compromises that brought a full-throated endorsement from GOP leaders, most particularly a provision that requires the Treasury secretary to establish a new federal insurance program, funded by the banks, that would protect firms against losses from troubled assets. Although Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke had concluded that such a program would not pump needed cash into struggling firms, House Republicans said it offered an alternative method for shoring up companies at no cost to taxpayers.

After the legislation was unveiled Sunday, both McCain and Obama endorsed it as a necessary step to avert economic disaster, in a signal to skittish lawmakers that the political risk of backing the bill might not be as dire as they feared.

On Sept. 20, Paulson presented Congress with a three-page economic rescue plan that would have granted the Treasury nearly unfettered power to shore up the nation's financial system, unchecked by federal or judicial review. By yesterday, the measure had grown to 110 pages, many of them devoted to the creation of myriad oversight agencies, including an independent inspector general. Still, the measure would have given Paulson broad authority to create an Office of Financial Stability within the Treasury, to hire its staff and to direct their activities. The head of the office would be subject to Senate confirmation and would be required to quickly publish guidelines for identifying, pricing and purchasing troubled assets.

Money for the program would be released in segments, with the Treasury secretary receiving $250 billion immediately. Paulson has said he expected to spend about $50 billion a month on the program. To protect taxpayers, participating firms would have been required to give the government warrants to buy stock so taxpayers could benefit if they returned to profitability. If the government did not regain all of its money after five years, the president would have been required to submit a plan for recovering the money "from entities benefiting from the program."

The measure also would have required federal officials to rein in excessive compensation for corporate executives who participate in the bailout program.