Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System from Crisis — and Themselves

by Andrew Ross Sorkin

Finally, at 2:10 p.m., after an unusually long period of forty minutes to count the votes, the gavel came down: The bailout was rejected 228 to 205. More than two thirds of the Republican representatives had voted against it, as had a large number of Democrats. Traders and investors had been watching the coverage also and started a frantic wave of selling. Stock prices plunged, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average tumbling 7 percent, or 777.68 points, its biggest one-day point drop ever. For a moment Paulson was speechless. His plan, which he believed might be the most important piece of legislation he could ever propose—his effort at avoiding a second Great Depression—had failed. As his staffers, seeking to comfort him and one another, silently gathered in his office, he said simply, “We’ve got to get back to work.”