Congress's initial rejection of the Bush Administration's $700 billion bailout plan calls to mind an unhappy precedent. Back in 1930, the Senate passed the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, which raised duties on some 20,000 imported goods. Historians define this as one of the critical steps that led to the Great Depression a tipping point when the world realized that partisan self-interest had trumped global leadership on Capitol Hill.
It's fair to ask whether America's lawmakers could do it again. The bursting of the debt-fueled property bubble and the crippling...