The Senate's changes to the Wall Street bailout plan were intended to make it more appealing to both the House and the America people, Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said Wednesday.

Read Paul Giblin's political blog

The reworked proposal includes an increase in federal guarantees on bank deposits, new and extended tax breaks, and other features touching on a wide range of topics. Perhaps just as importantly, the proposal has been reimaged as an economic stabilization plan.

Kyl, the No. 2 man in the Senate Republican leadership team, said he has already been finding agreement among some segments to the revamped package that was initially offered by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

Kyl said he's been in touch with a number of business interests in Arizona over the past few days.

"I have yet to find an Arizona business person who does not believe that (A) We have to act quickly, and (B) That the kind of thing that Paulson had recommended, with the significant changes that Congress has made, is an appropriate way to attack the problem," he said.

It's become increasingly clear within the business sector that without speedy government intervention, the credit crunch will have an increasing impact on the economy, Kyl said.

The tougher sell is among people outside of the business sector, he said. Arizona voters are divided on the plan, according to a survey released Tuesday.

Approximately 31 percent of voters support the plan to authorize the biggest government intervention in the markets since the Great Depression, according to a poll by Arizona State University and KAET-TV (Channel 8), while 39 percent oppose the measure and 30 percent had no opinion.

Their opinion, according to Kyl, is skewed by the media's frequent description of the proposal as a "Wall Street bailout" package.

Kyl said the word "bailout" is a corrosive term, the true cost may not reach $700 billion, and the proposal reaches out to more than just banks and mortgage companies.

"I think I'd probably put myself in the 30 percent who professed not to understand it," he said.

Kyl and other federal officials have changed their terminology in recent days from a "recovery" plan to a "stabilization" plan.

By any name, Arizona voters are divided nearly evenly despite political party affiliations, ages and other demographic indicators, said poll director Bruce Merrill.

"It cut across everything," he said.

The lone exception is that people with only high school educations were slightly more likely to oppose the bailout than people with college educations. Voters appeared to be confused by the particulars of the plan.

"I'm not sure they understand it from a financial point of view," Merrill said. "For a lot of people, it's more of an alienation kind of thing. They think it's just bailing out the big corporations, the rich people. So it's kind of a visceral kind of reaction to it."

On Tuesday, Reps. John Shadegg, R-Ariz., and Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., authored a letter signed by a bipartisan group of 60 lawmakers to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Chris Cox asking him to suspend mark-to-market rules. Mark-to-market is a practice that adjusts the value of an asset or liability to reflect the current market price.

"Congress must protect the American people and enable our nation's financial institution to make the loans necessary to run America's economy," Shadegg said in a news release. "By immediately suspending mark-to-market rules for accounting and substituting a new set of mark-to-value rules, we can do this without forcing taxpayers to purchase troubled assets," he said.

Reps. Jeff Flake and Trent Franks, both R-Ariz., also signed the letter.

Kyl said Shadegg, who has helped lead conservative House Republican discussion on the bill, said changes he recommended will improve the bill and attract Republican House votes.

"He has some other good ideas. We all do," Kyl said.

"Part of the problem is that there are people who have a different political philosophy than John (Shadegg) and me," he said. "And they have their own ideas, too. And the requirement to act quickly and the requirement to compromise means that we can't all get everything we want."