Several polls help explain why a small majority in the House of Representatives - which also goes to election on November 4 - rejected the Treasury's $700 billion bail-out despite almost universal urging from economists to endorse it to avert calamity.

Of 1505 Americans surveyed by the Pew Centre before the House vote and the Wall Street plunge, only 45 per cent agreed the Government should invest billions of dollars securing financial institutions; 38 per cent opposed it and the rest were unsure.

According to Pew, six out of 10 Americans are angry at the Government plan, and 50 per cent admit they are scared. Initially more in support of the plan, Republicans hardened in their opposition to the bail-out. Nearly three-quarters of Americans expressed concern at the thought that "those who are responsible for causing the crisis will be let off the hook", and more than half said they were concerned the government action "won't do enough to help homeowners in danger of losing their homes".

Forty-four per cent said they were worried about the Government "becoming too involved in financial markets".

When emails flooded Capitol Hill, threatening to choke the website, legislators began struggling with the concept of "government of the people, for the people, by the people".

Voter sentiment has cooled a little since Monday's market slide but remains overwhelmingly negative.

In northern Virginia, where the suburbs of Washington DC spread, the bail-out is a topic of intense discussion and careful thought.

Marion Mortaza, out shopping in her lunch break, said she and colleagues discussed the issue at work. "It's not going to help me, but it is going to help Wall Street to circulate more credit into the banks and it is going to help people that are in foreclosure," she says. "So even though there's no advantage for me, I still think it's a good idea."

Deanna Schoob, who works at a public interest law centre, is in two minds about the bail-out, but understands America's dislike for it.

"People are resisting it for two reasons: the legacy of this Administration going forward to a new administration on November 4, and also the general disconnect between Main Street and Wall Street," she says.

"The American public isn't smart and they don't understand that hurting Wall Street will tomorrow or next month or next year hurt them. They are terribly unrealistic; they get angry and shortsighted."

Younger workers find it harder to discern self-interest, particularly given the potential liability might fall on them. Says Jason Jose, a twentysomething hotel worker: "It helps out the investors, but what about the people on the street? If they were able to help out people both ways - help the people struggling with their mortgages as well as the multimillionaires - that would be fairer."

And John Limata, selling phone services in the mall, hopes the Administration has got the right plan. "It is not fair for taxpayers to have to be punished or made accountable because the quality control of some of these financial institutions was not there," he said. "We are supposed to be a capitalistic society. Well let capitalism run its course."

To understand why America is so crushed by this failure of capitalism and so hostile to the bail-out requires a quick look at the winners and losers from its longest economic boom. In the American dream, if the nation does well, everyone does better, and smart risk takers with good ideas do really well. Right?

Wrong.

As Bernie Sanders, an angry independent senator from Vermont, said in a passionate speech: "The middle class has really been under assault. Since President Bush has been in office, nearly 6 million Americans have slipped into poverty, median family income for working Americans has declined by more than $2000, more than 7 million Americans have lost their health insurance, over 4 million have lost their pensions, foreclosures are at an all-time high, total consumer debt has more than doubled, and we have a national debt of over $9.7 trillion."

And while the middle class collapses, the nation's richest have made out like bandits. "The top 0.1 per cent now earn more money than the bottom 50 per cent of Americans, and the top 1 per cent owns more wealth than the bottom 90 per cent. The wealthiest 400 people in our country saw their wealth increase by $670 billion while Bush has been president," Sanders said.

The Internal Revenue Service - America's tax man - confirms that the last time the top 1 per cent of income earners were this proportionately wealthy was 1929 - the year of the infamous Wall Street crash that battered Americans for a decade and pushed unemployment to 25 per cent in 1933.

If the House of Representatives approves the bail-out - and it works - it's likely there will be a serious rethink about how to secure the American dream for the main streeters as well as the Wall streeters. Says Tom Mann, a senior scholar at Brookings Institution: "The era of big government is returning, partly to cope with risks associated with health care and pensions, but now also because of the need to write an expanded set of rules for financial institutions."

For now, however, Americans are preparing to hold their noses and swallow the medicine.

Anne Davies is the Herald's Washington correspondent.