U.S. Rep. Tom Cole, R-Oklahoma, has had a rough couple of weeks.

“It has been quite a two-week period,” he said Tuesday during a visit to Chickasha. “It’s been very challenging.

Cole voted twice last week to approve a financial bailout plan that Congress hopes will steer the nation’s financial system back on course.

Cole doesn’t want to think what the alternative could be.

“This is a global crisis. Not just the stock market but markets all over the world, and the credit market.”

Back in Oklahoma meeting with constituents, thousands of whom have voiced their concerns over the financial bailout, Cole said it was those people a t home who led him to his vote.

“I thought a lot about the consequences of the crisis at home,” he said. “I’m convinced that if we didn’t do something now people’s 401K plans would be hurt and state pension plans would be threatened. It (the bailout) is the right thing.”

He said he was worried about credit “drying up” in Oklahoma, hurting many people, particularly small business owners

Cole said it would have been more politically advantageous to put the crisis off on the next Congress and administration and avoid a possible backlash at the polls next month.

“But, you don’t get to pick the time for an emergency. This is national, this is global in scope, he said. “ Letting nature run its course didn’t work in 1929. Quick action was important to build confidence.”

There are lots of reasons the financial markets got in the condition they are in, Cole said.

Among them, several new financial instruments such as Credit Swap Defaults that are not regulated.

He also said Congress passed or repealed legislation that created too many that lack sufficient collateral.

“There’s a lot of debt out there -- too much debt,” Cole said. “Everything came together and created a crisis.”

Cole said the bailout bill that eventually was passed is one with safeguards that won’t leave taxpayers holding the bag .