On Thursday, The Hill published the following op-ed by Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH). Senator Dodd is the Chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee and Senator Greg is ranking member of the Senate Budget Committee.

The United States is facing the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Long before the spectacular fall of entities such as Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns and AIG, millions of American families had been suffering their own financial collapses.

Already this year, our nation has lost over 750,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate has reached a five-year high. Recently, we’ve also witnessed steep losses in the equity markets, which have many Americans genuinely fearful about their retirement savings. Home values, which for millions of Americans represent their greatest source of wealth, have plummeted at a historic rate. And each day, foreclosure forces 9,800 families from their homes.

Several weeks ago, in the midst of this financial crisis, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke delivered to Congress news we never thought we would hear: that the threat to our economy was so enormous — so real — that it exceeded their authority to address it. For that reason, they asked Congress to provide an extraordinary amount of financial firepower to help stabilize our markets and steer our economy onto a steadier path.

Inaction was not an option. All economic indicators signaled that unemployment would dramatically rise, businesses would be unable to make payroll and purchase inventory, and families would be unable to attain the affordable credit that is needed to buy homes, cars, and college education for their children.

We knew that enacting legislation to respond to this emergency would be extremely difficult. Americans were angry and confused about how we had arrived at this urgent situation — and rightfully so. The administration was seeking an unprecedented amount of money and authority, and we were just weeks away from Election Day.

Furthermore, the rescue legislation was being characterized as a bailout for Wall Street rather than what it really was — an emergency measure to unclog the arteries of credit flow that serve virtually every citizen in every corner of this country.

None of us could guarantee that the administration’s plan would be a cure-all for our nation’s economic problems, but we did know that the risks this crisis would pose to our economy and to every American family if we failed to act were simply too great to ignore. Doing nothing, as cash was drying up on bank balance sheets and would soon do the same on the balance sheets of households and businesses across this country, was not a sensible option.

So working together and with several of our colleagues in the House and Senate, we decided to try to forge a responsible rescue package. We worked with each other, as well as the administration, to craft a strong package that will, in our view, meet three goals we believe to be essential for any rescue effort to succeed: stabilizing the economy, preserving homeownership, and protecting taxpayers.

The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act (EESA) gives the treasury secretary the authority he needs to respond swiftly and strongly, but also responsibly, to the current crisis. The bill provides the secretary $700 billion to take the necessary steps to meet this goal, including purchasing troubled assets or injecting essential capital into banks to help stabilize and strengthen the backbone of our financial system. While it is a staggering number, it is an amount necessary to unfreeze our credit markets, help get American businesses up and running again, and restore confidence to the global credit market.

Recognizing what an awesome burden this places on the shoulders of American taxpayers, we maximize protections for taxpayers by establishing an oversight board, transparency requirements, and independent audits and reports, and by subjecting the actions of the secretary to strong judicial review.

The bill also cracks down on golden parachutes for corporate executives who led their companies into financial despair, and gives taxpayers a stake in the profits in exchange for their investment.

Finally, EESA requires the Treasury Department and other federal agencies to modify loans wherever reasonably possible to help American families stay in their homes. As we all know by now, the collapse of the housing market has helped us arrive at this current situation. We must put an end to the rising number of foreclosures in order to stop this downward economic spiral.

When the administration sent Congress its 3 1/2  -page proposal on Sept. 20, in the middle of a contentious election season, many assumed it would die in an evenly divided Senate. Our leaders asked us to work together to develop a solution to the most imminent problem facing the country. We did that, and over the course of just 11 days we were able to pass a law that will help restore safety and security to the American economy.

Our Founding Fathers designed Congress to work in such a way. In the interest of the American people, this collaborative spirit must continue under our new president. The path to prosperity will not be easy, and other measures may be needed, but we believe this effort will help us overcome the challenges that lie ahead and was a necessary first step to put us back on that path.