Behind the bluster, lawmakers pledged to work again. Hoyer met with House Republican Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri, one of the lead GOP negotiators from the House.

Blunt, noting that the House would break for the Jewish holidays until Thursday, said, "We are going to have a couple days to see how the marketplace reacts to all this, and maybe that's a good thing."

House members weren't going home to campaign for re-election "until this is addressed," Hoyer vowed.

Both Blunt and Hoyer suggested that the Senate could vote first on a bill then send it to the House, but Senate leaders showed no inclination to take up a bill without being certain of its fate in the House.

"What would be wrong, I think, would be to act without some kind of clear indication from the House about how they're going to proceed," said Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee. "We don't need to start all over."

The two men campaigning to replace Bush watched the situation closely - from afar - and demanded action.

In Iowa, Republican John McCain said his rival Barack Obama and congressional Democrats "infused unnecessary partisanship into the process. Now is not the time to fix the blame; it's time to fix the problem."

Obama said, "Democrats, Republicans, step up to the plate, get it done."

The burden for votes fell more strongly on Republican leaders. About three out of five House Democrats voted for the legislation; only a third of Republicans backed it.

... contd.