The U.S. Senate by a vote of 74-25 passed the $700 billion financial bailout bill Wednesday night.

 

The legislation, which now heads to the U.S. House for action as early as Friday, authorizes purchase of up to $700 billion of troubled mortgage-backed securities created before March 14.

 

In the minutes leading up to the vote, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., exhorted his colleagues to support the financial bailout bill and singled out New Mexico’s own Sen. Pete Domenici for special recognition.

 

Amid all the policies in the legislation to help right the American economy, Reid said, is a provision that also would require insurance companies to require that group health insurance coverage for mental illness and substance abuse be provided on the same terms as coverage for physical illnesses.  

 

It is legislation that Domenici, as well as Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and others, have worked for years to pass.

 

It would “be a fitting tribute to Sen. Domenici,” Reid said, if the Senate passed this bill as New Mexico’s longest-serving U.S. senator retires at the end of this term following three and a half decades in the Senate.

 

The financial bailout bill itself stipulates that $250 billion would be made availably immediately; $100 billion would be used at the president’s discretion; and $350 billion would be up to congressional review.

 

The bill also would revise the federal alternative minimum tax, which would save the middle class from $60 billion in taxes, Reid said. The legislation also would create business tax breaks, would prohibit CEOs of companies getting help from receiving “golden parachutes,” would give homeowners facing foreclosure much-needed help, and would raise the FDIC insurance limit at banks to $250,000 from $100,000.

 

New Mexico’s other senator, Jeff Bingaman, voted for the bailout bill, as did both presidential candidates, Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain.

 

The momentousness of Thursday night’s vote was not lost on the U.S. Senate.

 

“This is a big moment,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky. “This is the kind of vote that we were sent here by the people to cast.”

 

“It is the one of the finest moments in the history of the Senate,” he said moments later..

 

Reid said his office had been flooded by calls from constituents and quoted from a letter he had received from a constituent in Nevada. The man said his home had lost $100,000 in value while his salary had dropped by 35 percent. “I’m fighting to stay current (on mortgage),” Reid quoted the man as writing.

 

 

“Mr. President, the rescue package we are about to pass is not for the titans of Wall Street,” Reid said to the Senate. “This plan is for the man in Henderson.”