El Tinklenberg issued the following statement Friday on the House passage of the economic rescue bill (H.R. 1424).

Read the statement after the jump.

No one is pleased that we now have to use taxpayer dollars to fix this mess, but Congresswoman Bachmann's two 'no' votes this week demonstrate an unwillingness to put the needs of Main Street before her own political reputation. You can be sure that when I am in Congress, I will be working to protect people's retirement savings, not my political image.

What the financial markets needed most on Monday was a sense of confidence. They needed to see leadership, to see that somebody was in charge and moving forward to find a solution. Instead, what they got was uncertainty and chaos. The outcome of Monday's 'no' vote was a total market freefall, which came as a result of Congress' failure to solidify an agreement before the vote took place.

In addition, a stronger focus on preventing foreclosures could have helped stem the crisis. We would also have made much more progress by addressing the underlying problems that contributed to the meltdown, particularly by enacting mortgage reforms to help keep people in their homes.