October 2, 2008 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE H10693 

you’re right. We wanted to give you 

more money. We’ll raise your $1-million-a-month salary to $2 million a 

month.’’ 

Now, if that qualifies as limits on the 

executive compensation of companies 

that need and get a bailout under this 

bill, please explain to me how that is. 

Look, Bill Gates is running a great 

company. He doesn’t need a bailout. I 

hope he gets paid a whole lot. But if 

your company has been run into the 

ground, if you need a bailout, if you’re 

part of the reason for this panic situation, why do you need to pay over $1 

million a year to any executive? That 

ought to be the limit. Frankly, it 

strikes me as a generous limit. 

We’re told that there’s going to be 

oversight under this bill. There is a 

good, Democratic-dominated board 

that is created. It is a critique board, 

not a control board. It is a board that 

will issue press releases and reports, 

but it will not halt and it will not reverse and it will not delay any decision 

that will be made by the Secretary of 

the Treasury, which brings up another 

thing: 

Why are we having Paulson run this 

thing? I thought he already had a job. 

The Secretary of the Treasury ought to 

be a full-time job if we’re in a period of 

an unparalleled, sky-is-falling economic crisis. Furthermore, he is temporary. He is leaving Washington in 

January. Why doesn’t this bill provide 

for an administrator selected in a bipartisan way and with bipartisan support who is willing to stick around for 

2 or 3 years? Because this is a PaulsonBush power grab. Paulson doesn’t want 

somebody else to do it. He wants to be 

up on Wall Street, handing out the 

money to the companies he likes and 

ignoring the phone calls from the firms 

he doesn’t like. 

I want to point out that, if another 

Member comes to the floor in the next 

couple of minutes, he can claim the 

next hour. Otherwise, for better or for 

worse, this speech and all of the pontificating on this floor will be over 

soon. So I hope Members will come to 

the floor. We’ve got a lot to discuss. 

The board is just a critique board. 

Paulson’s power is undiminished, and 

we’re having a part-time, temporary 

employee run this because that’s what 

Paulson really wants. Homeowners are 

not going to get any relief under this 

bill. All $700 billion can easily be spent. 

I see the gentlelady from Ohio (Ms. 

SUTTON), and I hope that she claims the 

next hour of time. I thank her for coming here and for being here so quickly. 

I will use the remaining 3 minutes of 

my time, and I will look forward to 

being part of her Special Order, right 

up until the Vice Presidential debate 

starts. 

b 2015 

We are told in 2009 we are going to 

pass really good legislation to make 

sure that this never happens again— 

corporate governance reform, regulatory reform, we are going to get it 

done. What is really going to happen? 

We may write a really good bill in the 

House, something Wall Street really 

hates. Then it goes over to the Senate 

where 41 Senators out of 100 is all it 

takes to block it. I don’t think they 

will defeat reform legislation in the 

Senate. They will delay it and then 

they will dilute it. And by the time it 

passes, it will be so diluted, Wall Street 

will drink it down with a smile on its 

face knowing that no effective reform 

is really being imposed upon them. 

So we are not going to see meaningful regulatory reform; although we will 

pass something and Wall Street will 

tell you it is a big deal. We will see 

million-dollar-a-month salaries, or 

one-and-a-half million or $2 million a 

month salaries paid to the executives 

of these firms while they are getting a 

bailout with our taxpayer money. 

We are going to see a very large percentage of this money going to buy securities, bad paper, and toxic assets 

currently in safes in Shanghai, Beijing, 

London and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. 

We will see all of the power in the 

hands of the Bush administration and 

in the hands of a part-time temporary 

administrator, namely the Secretary of 

the Treasury. 

Under this bill, if it passes, we don’t 

really know what is going to happen to 

the economy. No one knows. The only 

thing that is certain, two things: Wall 

Street executives are going to get huge 

amounts of money and our children 

and grandchildren are going to get 

stuck with hundreds of billions of dollars of additional Federal debt. And we 

as a country, having just done a bad 

$700 billion program, will not be able to 

do anything to help homeowners because we won’t have the money. We 

won’t be able to bail out local governments because we won’t have the 

money. We won’t be able to deal effectively with the real banking-lending 

crisis because we will have shot our entire wad on a bill that is guaranteed 

only to do one thing, and that is to 

help the truly wealthy on Wall Street. 

My time has expired, and I look forward to the Speaker giving unanimous 

consent to the gentlelady from Ohio 

controlling the next hour. 

f 

REPORT ON RESOLUTION PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF 

SENATE AMENDMENTS TO H.R. 

1424, EMERGENCY ECONOMIC 

STABILIZATION ACT OF 2008; ENERGY IMPROVEMENT AND EXTENSION ACT OF 2008; AND TAX 

EXTENDERS AND ALTERNATIVE 

MINIMUM TAX RELIEF ACT OF 

2008 

Ms. SUTTON, from the Committee on 

Rules, submitted a privileged report 

(Rept. No. 110–907) on the resolution (H. 

Res. 1525) providing for consideration 

of the bill (H.R. 1424) to amend section 

712 of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, section 2705 

of the Public Health Service Act, section 9812 of the Internal Revenue Code 

of 1986 to require equity in the provision of mental health and substance-related disorder benefits under group 

health plans, to prohibit discrimination on the basis of genetic information with respect to health insurance 

and employment, and for other purposes, which was referred to the House 

Calendar and ordered to be printed. 

f 

REPORT ON RESOLUTION PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF 

MOTIONS TO SUSPEND THE 

RULES AND WAIVING REQUIREMENT OF CLAUSE 6(a) OF RULE 

XIII WITH RESPECT TO CONSIDERATION OF CERTAIN RESOLUTIONS 

Ms. SUTTON, from the Committee on 

Rules, submitted a privileged report 

(Rept. No. 110–908) on the resolution (H. 

Res. 1526) providing for consideration 

of motions to suspend the rules and 

waiving a requirement of clause 6(a) of 

rule XIII with respect to consideration 

of certain resolutions reported from 

the Committee on Rules, which was referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed. 

f 

OMISSION FROM THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD OF MONDAY, 

SEPTEMBER 29, 2008, AT PAGE 

H10640 

LEAVE OF ABSENCE 

By unanimous consent, leave of absence was granted to: 

Mr. CULBERSON (at the request of Mr. 

BOEHNER) for today until 8:48 a.m. on 

account of official business. 

f 

CORRECTION TO THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD OF MONDAY, 

SEPTEMBER 29, 2008, AT PAGE 

H10618 

BROADBAND DATA IMPROVEMENT 

ACT 

Mr. MARKEY. Madam Speaker, I ask 

unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Commerce be 

discharged from further consideration 

of the Senate bill (S. 1492) to improve 

the quality of Federal and State data 

regarding the availability and quality 

of broadband services and to promote 

the deployment of affordable 

broadband services to all parts of the 

Nation, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House. 

The Clerk read the title of the Senate 

bill. 

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there 

objection to the request of the gentleman from Massachusetts? 

There was no objection. 

The text of the Senate bill is as follows: 

S. 1492 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in 

Congress assembled, 


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