Senate Republicans to meet Obama advisers on bailout
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President-elect Barack Obama's economic team will brief Senate Republicans on Wednesday, fighting broad skepticism in Congress about releasing the second $350 billion of the financial industry bailout.
"While I feel strongly that we must continue to stabilize the economy, I would find it exceedingly difficult to support additional taxpayer funds without serious assurances from the incoming administration that the taxpayers will be protected," said Mitch McConnell, leader of the Republican minority in the Senate.
"We look forward to hearing from them," McConnell said on the Senate floor.
The Kentucky senator did not identify who would conduct the briefings, but Obama and his economic team have been fanning out across Capitol Hill seeking bipartisan backing ahead of his inauguration next Tuesday.
The new round of meetings are the latest effort by Obama to reach across party lines to build support after partisan bickering under outgoing Republican President George W. Bush brought most legislative efforts to a halt.
Obama went to the Senate on Tuesday to lobby his fellow Democrats to support the release of the money -- the second half of a $700 billion bailout for the financial sector that was approved last October and aimed to unlock frozen credit.
Obama also sought to build support for an economic stimulus package that would channel another $775 billion to jolt the U.S. economy out of recession.
While they met, several Senate Republicans on Tuesday said they were unhappy with the lack of detail the incoming Obama officials had offered on how they planned to use the second half of the financial industry rescue money.
"We want assurances that, if we decide to release additional funding, this money will not be wasted, that it will not be used for the industry-specific bailouts that some House (of Representatives) Democrats are already requesting," McConnell said.
Many Republicans expressed frustration that the bailout was expanded last month to provide financial backing to the ailing U.S. automakers.
But the Bush administration has also been criticized by Democrats for its handling of the first part of the bailout money, on the grounds it has done too little to help consumers.
Lawrence Summers, Obama's designee to be the director of the White House National Economic Council, sent lawmakers a letter on Monday saying the money would be used for helping Americans with their mortgages and avoid foreclosure as well as supplementing existing programs.
(Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky, editing by Frances Kerry)
