Tough part now is making the bailout work

There's a lot of talk about "bold" in the nation's capital when referring to congressional passage of a measure that will provide some $700 billion-plus to bail out Wall Street and the nation's financial community.

Frankly, we see it more as "bald" -- as in bald-faced, election-year posturing. After an initial setback in the House, the emergency measure eventually was approved by both houses of Congress and signed by President Bush on Friday.

But only after a few goodies had been earmarked along the way to entice needed votes.

The first attempt at bailout money came last Monday when the House rejected it 228-205. The bill then went to the Senate, where the pork was added before it was approved 74-25 Wednesday. On Friday, the House ran a second vote and this time the spiffed-up proposal was approved 263-171.

In the Washington delegation, Sen. Patty Murray supported the bailout, while Sen. Maria Cantwell voted no Wednesday.

In the House, voting in favor of the bailout bill Friday were Democratic Reps. Brian Baird, Norm Dicks, Rick Larsen and Adam Smith. Voting no were Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott and Jay Inslee and Republican Reps. Doc Hastings, Cathy McMorris Rodgers and Dave Reichert.

Senate leaders unabashedly added $110 billion in tax and spending provisions to the bailout money and even tacked on legislation mandating broader mental health coverage in the insurance industry. Perhaps some of that coverage and treatment could be earmarked for those in the Wall Street board rooms who got us into this mess.

The bailout plan also extends a program that pays rural counties hurt by federal logging cutbacks and allows Washington state residents to continue deducting state sales taxes on federal income tax returns. Also extended were tax credits for renewable energy such as solar, wind and hydropower, as well as biomass and geothermal electricity.

Those may all be noble and necessary goals. But we question whether they belong in emergency legislation designed to right the economic ship of state.

That said, we repeat our earlier position that doing nothing simply was not an option. There's plenty of blame to go around for this national disgrace, but the fact remains innocent people on Main Street, not Wall Street, stood to be hurt the most.

Still, the compromise measure is a huge intervention of government into regulation of the private sector and that's always cause for alarm. It's also a sweeping spike in federal debt. That's why there must be follow-up by the administration and Congress to ensure accountability, oversight and transparency (meaning open to public view). And the government billions must be parsed out over time with expectations of an eventual return on taxpayers' investments.

Without those safeguards, we question whether something of this magnitude will ever work. As members of Congress now prepare to return to home states and districts for campaigning, they should be ready for a wary public in need of a lot of assurances.

No way should this bailout be turned into political fodder for the campaign trail. It really doesn't matter who voted for or against it because now it's a done deal.

The challenge ahead is to make it work.

* Members of the Yakima Herald-Republic editorial board are Michael Shepard, Sarah Jenkins, Bill Lee and Karen Troianello.

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