WASHINGTON With the economy on the brink and elections looming, Congress approved an unprecedented $700 billion government bailout of the battered financial industry on Friday and sent it to President Bush for his certain signature.

The economy could be in a continual downward spiral and many Black women are not prepared to comfortably survive, financially, if things got worse. But that wouldn’t stop them from opening their wallets to treat themselves, based on a recent survey from the ING Foundation.

We are past the last 50 days of what is being advertised as “the most historic presidential campaign in our lifetime.” Get ready for a loaded cocktail of campaign rhetoric, charges and counter charges, misdeeds and stern faced political promises.