Zach Wamp

Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., said the feedback he has gotten from his constituents on a Wall Street bailout has been overwhelmingly against it.

Still, he said, to do nothing could result in even greater economic pain for Americans of all stripes.

“I understand their anger,” said Sen. Corker, a member of the Senate Banking Committee. “On the other hand, I’m also aware of how this can tremendously negatively impact everybody’s lives in Tennessee if the credit issue gets out of control.”

Negotiations on the financial rescue plan continued in Washington throughout Tuesday, and Sen. Corker said he is optimistic Congress will pass a bill by the end of the week.

The House defeated the package on Monday, 206-228, with many members, particularly Republicans, objecting to the size and scope of the bailout plan. The main thrust of the bill, first proposed by Bush administration officials last week, would allow the government to purchase up to $700 billion in debt to keep ailing financial firms from failing.

“If this were just about Wall Street, I wouldn’t be for this,” Sen. Corker said. “You’re talking about people not being able to cash payroll checks or get loans. I still believe this is the right thing to do for the country and I hope, over time, people will see that.”

Rep. Zach Wamp, R-Tenn., was one of the House members who voted against the package Monday, but he agreed that Congress likely will approve a bill by week’s end.

Speaking to a small business gathering in Chattanooga on Tuesday, Rep. Wamp said the initial proposal “was more of a money transfer than any needed reform” to solve the credit crisis.

“There’s no guarantee that this program was going to work, and the people didn’t want it,” he said. “This ended up being Wall Street over the taxpayer, and that leaves a very sour taste in my mouth.”

One part of the defeated bailout, raising the federal debt ceiling to $11.3 trillion — twice the level that it was before Sept. 11, 2001 — “is very hard to swallow,” he said.

Rep. Wamp said he hopes a compromise can be reached that temporarily will relax some of the accounting rules for valuing assets, raise the FDIC insurance on bank deposits above $100,000 and shift more of the plan from loan purchases to loan insurance.

“I understand the urgency,” he said. “It was painful to watch the stock market Monday and to see the fear in people’s faces. But that doesn’t mean this bill was the right thing to do. By the end of the week, we’ll have a better product.”

Congressional offices have been so inundated with constituent calls and e-mails on the issue that House online technicians on Tuesday had to limit the number of e-mails people could send through lawmakers’ Web sites to keep the servers from crashing, according to The Hill, the Capitol newspaper.

Rep. Lincoln Davis, D-Tenn., a member of the House Financial Services Committee, could not be reached for comment. He was the lone Democrat in the Tennessee delegation to vote against the plan.

All seven of Georgia’s House Republicans also voted against the package.

“It was abundantly clear that a majority of the people of the Ninth District of Georgia felt the same way as I did,” Rep. Nathan Deal, R-Ga., wrote in an open letter to his constituents.

But Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., told The Associated Press that he would have voted for the package, and that some banks have stopped making automobile loans due to tightening credit.

“Doing nothing is not the answer,” Sen. Chambliss told the AP.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., also urged fast passage of the package, saying on the Senate floor Tuesday that Congress cannot wait for “dozens of banks to fail, for payroll checks to bounce, and for auto loans to dry up.”