COLUMBIA --- U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson voted for both versions of an emergency bailout bill that came before the House, but Rob Miller, the Democrat challenging him in the 2nd Congressional District, says he would have rejected both.

"Congress panicked and did what they always do and threw money at the problem," Mr. Miller said.

Mr. Wilson acknowledges that there is room to improve the $700 billion version that passed, which the president signed last month.

He says lawmakers should resist the urge to raise taxes, despite the high cost of the rescue measure. In fact, one way to help the economy recover, he said, is to reduce corporate taxes so that the United States can compete with countries that have lower tax rates.

He says there are at least two major reasons for the current crisis.

First, lenders gave loans to people who could not pay them back.

"The second contributing factor is greed," he said. "I am very disappointed in the Wall Street executives who have driven their companies into the ground by overextending risk. Then they provided themselves severance packages, sometimes up to $20 million. I think it's an abuse of your and my trust that, in fact, the chairman of Fannie Mae actually received over $90 million in the few years he worked there."

Mr. Miller says both measures that came before Congress ignored the nation's underlying problems and favored the financial industry over the public.

"They (banks) are going to sell us their most worthless assets and attempt to keep their mortgage assets, which are going to gain in value in the next three, five or 10 years," he said.

He faults weak congressional oversight and the Bush administration, which he said created the "perfect storm" of industry deregulation.

"There was a huge buildup of failed policies, runaway spending, borrow-and-spend politics of the administration and my opponent in Congress that led us to this point," Mr. Miller said.

The Democrat also took issue with what he said were unnecessary spending measures attached to the second bailout bill as sweeteners.