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Bush team, Congress negotiate $700B bailout

(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-09-21 08:24

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration asked Congress on Saturday for the power to buy $700 billion in toxic assets clogging the financial system and threatening the economy as negotiations began on the largest bailout since the Great Depression.

US President George W. Bush speaks during a press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC. US administration officials and lawmakers held urgent negotiations Saturday on an unprecedented 700-billion-dollar plan to rescue the financial sector from the worst crisis since the Great Depression. [Agencies]

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The rescue plan would give Washington broad authority to purchase bad mortgage-related assets from US financial institutions for the next two years. It does not specify which institutions qualify or what, if anything, the government would get in return for the unprecedented infusion.

Democrats are pressing to require that the plan help more strapped borrowers stay in their homes and to condition the bailout on new limits on executive compensation.

Congressional aides and administration officials are working through the weekend to fill in the details of the proposal. The White House hoped for a deal with Congress by the time markets opened Monday; top lawmakers say they would push to enact the plan as early as the coming week.

"We're going to work with Congress to get a bill done quickly," President Bush said at the White House. Without discussing specifics, he said, "This is a big package because it was a big problem."

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