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Maryland's congressional delegation displayed their best and worst traits during votes in the House of Representatives to stem the nation's most alarming financial crisis since the Great Depression.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Dist. 5) of Mechanicsville covered himself in glory by leading the charge for an unpopular but urgently needed $700 billion repair bill to keep the nation's economy afloat.

Unfortunately, three other Maryland congressmen put ideology and wheeling-dealing ahead of rescuing the country. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Dist. 6) of Buckeystown, Elijah Cummings (D-Dist. 7) of Baltimore and Donna Edwards (D-Dist. 4) of Fort Washington let their politics come first and said to heck with the nation's growing credit crunch and worldwide panic.

They voted "no" on the $700 billion rescue plan despite pleas from the president, top congressional leaders and this year's presidential candidates. Apparently, they knew something no one in positions of authority did about the financial crisis.

By the time two of them (Cummings and Edwards) came to their senses and changed their votes, the damage was done. Virtually no credit was available for small business owners, McDonald's franchisees or people wanting to buy cars, refrigerators or anything with borrowed money. Overseas investors lost confidence in Congress' resolve to confront the growing crisis.

Political expediency came first for Cummings and Edwards, who sought to use the rescue package to extort more aid for constituents struggling to pay their sub-prime mortgages. For Bartlett, it was all about ideology. He would have been comfortable in the 18th century Whig Party. He opposes virtually any government interference. He's unwilling to heed his own president's argument that extreme situations require far-reaching and rapid action.

Think what would have happened if previous legislators had cast those kinds of head-in-the-sand votes. What if Congress had rejected Franklin Roosevelt's emergency bills to stem the panic of the early 1930s and his demands for forceful, sweeping intervention? What if Congress had delayed passage so they could squeeze more political "juice" out of the president?

Closer to home, what would have happened if state legislators had rejected Gov. Harry Hughes' 1985 emergency bill to insure all deposits in Maryland's collapsing savings and loans?

Back then, the governor addressed a special session of the General Assembly with these words: "Let me emphasize that it is neither accurate nor helpful toward solution of this crisis to describe any part of this package as a bailout or a break for those few whose ineptitude, mismanagement or greed might have contributed to the current difficulty. … Instead, this is a lifeline to those hard-working, thrift depositors who have made possible a savings and loan industry, which is a vital factor in our economy for so many."

At a second special session, Hughes urged lawmakers to stop politicking and face reality: "Ladies and gentlemen of the legislature, this is no game. We need action and we need it now."

Today's congressional naysayers want to point an accusing finger at Wall Street and walk away from this debacle. Yet every owner of a mutual fund, a retirement or bank account or insurance policy is tied to Wall Street. We all got greedy.

Ironically, Cummings and the Congressional Black Caucus made matters worse by demanding that financial institutions loosen mortgage standards so more minority, lower-income families could purchase homes — even with bad credit and insufficient resources. That unwise move is now walloping those companies and those homeowners — and the U.S. economy.

Early in the 1960s, another savings and loan scandal hit Maryland. Tens of thousands of depositors lost money because the government didn't intervene. A commission led by Baltimore lawyer Richard Case found plenty of blame to go around including "the age-old quest of something for nothing — or the receipt of ‘top dollar.' "

That holds true today, too. Everyone was looking to get the highest interest rate or the highest stock profit. We ignored the risk and tossed prudence aside.

Government's role in restoring equilibrium to financial markets is pivotal. Those like Roscoe Bartlett who seek to abolish any government role are romantics. Those like Cummings and Edwards who played politics instead of giving immediate support to the rescue package were being equally unreasonable.

One of this nation's chief executives, reflecting on the greatest economic calamity in this nation's history, wrote, "The primary question at once arose as to whether the President and the federal government should undertake to mitigate and to remedy the[se] evils." His conclusion: "We had to pioneer a new field." Federal intervention was a necessity. "Words are not of any great importance in times of economic disturbance. It is action that counts."

These remarks could have come last week from George W. Bush. Or they could have been spoken by Franklin Roosevelt.

Instead, they came from Herbert Hoover, an arch-conservative and free-market devotee. Reality — the utter collapse of the U.S. economy — changed Hoover's tune as it should have changed recalcitrants in Washington last week. They became part of the problem by casting "no" votes even as the economy was sinking fast into the depths of despair.

Barry Rascovar has written columns on state politics for the past 28 years, including Maryland's savings and loan crisis of 1985.