UPDATE 4-US House leaders optimistic for bailout bill

(Updates with vote planned on Friday)

By Richard Cowan and Donna Smith

WASHINGTON, Oct 2 (Reuters) - U.S. House Democratic leaders expressed optimism on Thursday that a revised $700 billion financial industry rescue bill passed by the Senate will clear the House of Representatives, which rejected the bailout earlier in the week and rocked financial markets worldwide.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said the bill to help bail out Wall Street will be sent to the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday for debate and then put to the vote.

Hoyer said he was "hopeful that there will be bi-partisan majority support" for the legislation as he left a closed-door strategy meeting of Democrat congressional leaders.

Earlier on Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would not schedule the floor debate until she thought there were enough votes in hand to pass it.

"We're not going to take a bill to the floor that doesn't have the votes. I'm optimistic that we will take a bill to the floor," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat told reporters.

House Democratic Whip James Clyburn, the party's chief vote counter, said support among Democrats had grown but that Republicans still needed to deliver enough votes for passage.

Meanwhile, a key House panel late on Thursday decided that no amendments to the legislation would be allowed and that the House would only be allowed to vote on the Senate-passed bill.

A group of House Republicans was pushing for an amendment that would have cut federal funding of the bill to $250 billion.

Democrats continued to insist that there be bipartisan support for the controversial legislation. On Monday, roughly two thirds of Republicans voted against the bill, while about 60 percent of Democrats supported it.

Many lawmakers had turned against the plan when their offices where flooded with calls from taxpayers vehement that they should not be asked to bail out Wall Street. Monday's House vote sent stock markets into a tailspin.

During the week, President George W. Bush and congressional leaders began making a clearer case for the need for the bailout, arguing that a widespread credit freeze was beginning to hurt consumers and businesses seeking loans.

In the Senate on Wednesday, a strong majority of both Republican and Democratic senators voted 74-25 for a revised plan sweetened with a package of tax cuts and an increase in bank deposit insurance, sending it to the House for another vote.

Now lawmakers said they see public sentiment shifting somewhat more in favor of the controversial bill.

The bill is aimed to free up tight credit markets by empowering Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to buy mortgage securities and other financial instruments that have lost value because of the deteriorating housing and credit markets.