Shortly after the bailout bill failed to pass through U.S. Congress, U.S. President George W. Bush and Treasure Secretary Hank Paulson made clear that they had not given up hope of passing a similar bill soon.

Paulson said he was committed “to use all the tools available to protect our financial system and our economy,” adding: “Our tool kit is substantial but insufficient.”

He vowed to work with Congress “to pass a comprehensive plan to stabilize our financial system,” and acknowledged that “we’ve got much work to do. This is much too important to simply let fail.”

Bush himself said he was “disappointed” with the result – without blaming anyone specifically for its failure – but indicated he would assemble his advisers and close allies to to tackle the crisis “head on.”

Democratic nominee for president Barack Obama, meanwhile, proposed extending the federal deposit insurance limit from $100,000 to $250,000. This would, he said, “boost small businesses, make our banking system more secure and help restore public confidence in our financial system.”

“While I, like others, am outraged that the reign of irresponsibility on Wall Street and in Washington has created the current crisis, I also know that continued inaction in the face of the gathering storm in our financial markets would be catastrophic for our economy and our families,” he said.

Obama added that he was confident that a solution would be found, and once again called on everyone to remain calm; something he has done throughout this crisis, leading many to wonder whether calming people down was the only thing Obama could and was willing to do.

Obama’s plan would indeed help small businesses in the short run, but one has to wonder whether it would not cause more problems in the long run. Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, it cannot be argued that this plan would solve the crisis in any way. It would not even come close to solving it. It could be a good idea, but to pretend that this is a plan that would somehow be of great importance and significance now would be silly.

In short, it seems that the Obama campaign has come up with a ‘plan’ just to be able to say that they came up with something. Something is, as we all know, better than nothing. The McCain campaign has not suggested much, which means that Obama will be able to present himself as the only candidate who actually thought about how to deal with the crisis, and took the time to suggest alternatives. It is a stunt, more than anything else.

The problems continue to exist. The main question is what U.S. Congress will do next. Will the two sides come together, or will – this is possible – the Democrats now present a plan that can count on the full support from their colleagues in the party, but not by the far majority of Republicans and that will be passed nonetheless. After all, Democrats have the majority of the seats in Congress. They do not truly need Republican support to push through a bill that would, somewhat, limit the impact of the current financial and economic crisis.