But the distress over the bailout and its timing was hardly unique to Republicans as lawmakers in both parties seethed. Here they were, six weeks to the day before already angry voters head to the polls, being told they had the choice to write a $700 billion check or risk dragging the economy down into bread-line, soup-kitchen territory.

At the same time, the lawmakers were under siege from angry constituents who had kept current with their own mortgage payments and now wondered why they were suddenly being stuck with the tab for a crisis set off by foreclosures.

“Like my colleagues, my phones have been ringing off the hook,” Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, told the two architects of the bailout  Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. and the Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke  at the banking committee session. “The sentiment from Ohioans about this proposal is universally negative. I count myself among the Ohioans who are angry.”

Even backers of the bailout were hardly enthusiastic. “Nobody wants to do this; nobody wants to be involved in this,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the Republican leader. “But I am going to argue that if we do nothing, we are jeopardizing our economy, jobs, people’s retirement security. Congress has to act and we have to act quickly.”

Given the circumstances and dire warnings of economic doom, the expectation remained that enough lawmakers would grit their teeth, hold their noses, screw up their courage and back some variation of the administration plan, a proposal Mr. Cheney privately told Republicans was a response to the worst economic situation he had seen.

Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the House majority leader, said he expected that Congress would do the responsible thing and do it soon  though just how soon remained unclear. “Acting in the near term is important to stabilize the economy and to protect our taxpayers,” Mr. Hoyer said.

Those same taxpayers were also pushed front and center by the authors of the proposal as they sought to make the case that the true beneficiaries of the plan were not greedy Wall Street executives but ordinary Americans and their pensions, savings and employers.