Pelosi, Boehner, Paulson meet on bailout

The top Democrat and Republican in the House joined Wednesday to meet with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to try to reach an agreement on a broad Wall Street bailout bill that has been losing steam amid intra-party dissent Tuesday. 

{mosads}House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) spokesman, Nadeam Elshami, said Pelosi met with Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Paulson to discuss the status of the $700 billion Wall Street bailout, just prior to Paulson’s testimony before the House Financial Services Committee.

The aim is to find a bipartisan agreement with significant support from a majority of Democrats and Republicans. Pelosi told members of her caucus on Tuesday that there would be no vote on the bailout without “a majority of the minority.”

Boehner has had more trouble than Pelosi in convincing his rank-and-file members of the dire straits that Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke say would face the financial sector and the overall economy should the bailout not happen.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said his staff was working with the staff of Sen. Chris Dodd’s (D-Conn.) Banking Committee to reach agreement on a single bill, rather than separate House and Senate versions.

Asked if the two chambers needed to reach agreement on a single bill, Frank said: “Yes.”

The lawmaker added that he believes Pelosi does indeed have a threshold for a minimum number of Republican votes necessary to bring the bill forward, but he said he did not know what that number was.