H10680 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE October 2, 2008 

ornaments will make a lot of people 

rich, but your children, grandchildren 

and great grandchildren will have to 

pay for them for years. 

When this body, having been rushed 

to judgment by the President and by 

our own leadership, rejected the plan 

on Monday, it was alleged that the 

House vote was responsible for the Dow 

Jones Industrial Average’s falling by 

700 points. So how do we explain the 

fact that the stock market fell almost 

350 points today, the day after the Senate passed the Bush-Paulson bailout 

bill? 

What the stock market said today 

was heads you lose; tails you lose. 

America will still have a housing crisis 

even if the House puts the American 

taxpayer on the hook for another $870 

billion for Wall Street. So don’t believe 

people who tell you that the market is 

responding negatively to votes against 

the Bush-Paulson plan. The stock market is reacting negatively to the lack 

of leadership. The market knows that 

the Bush-Paulson plan is the wrong 

medicine. It knows the Bush-Paulson 

plan will not solve the problems in our 

economy. 

Madam Speaker, the American people have already spoken, and the financial markets are speaking, too. The 

Bush-Paulson plan, even this porked-up 

version, is not the solution of the economic emergency facing our country, 

and that is why the House should not 

rush to judgment. 

This House should stop and take a 

deep breath and make a commitment 

to stay in session until we enact comprehensive reform of the financial system and not take a quick vote on a 

stopgap plan that will cost the taxpayers $870 billion and counting. As I 

have said all along, we have to have reform first, not last after they take the 

money. 

I know there’s a political sideshow 

underway, and I realize that certain 

Members face tough reelection battles 

and that they desperately want to wrap 

up business here so that they can go 

back home to campaign. To them, I 

would say, ‘‘Trust your constituents. 

They will respect you for staying in 

Washington to address the economic 

emergency rather than your running 

home to shake hands and to kiss babies.’’ 

Madam Speaker, the Senate’s response to the House rejection of the 

Paulson plan was to add more spending. So we got tax breaks for rum. 

You’ve got it right. R-U-M. We got tax 

breaks for mine rescue teams, tax 

breaks for railroads, tax breaks for 

automobile race tracks, and tax breaks 

for wool research. I’m not making this 

up. They added tax breaks for movie 

and television productions, 6 pages of 

earmarks for Alaska for litigation in 

the Exxon Valdez disaster and, the coup 

de grace, tax breaks for wooden arrows 

designed for use by children. 

Now, our Nation is facing an economic emergency, and the Senate adds 

a tax break for wooden arrows designed 

for use by children. One would ask: 

Children’s wooden arrows? Why not the 

bows, too? 

This is surreal. The American people 

deserve better. It appears that the 

Bush-Paulson team has failed to sell 

the country on the merits of a Wall 

Street bailout, and has decided to buy 

the package. We saw the same thing 

here in 1993 when the Clinton administration couldn’t sell NAFTA on its 

merits and, instead, opened the Federal 

Treasury to buy the votes of enough 

Members to win passage. 

Let’s get back to reality, but first of 

all, everybody needs to calm down. 

Don’t give in to fear and don’t give in 

to panic. We need regular order in this 

House. We need to be the deliberative 

body that our system of government 

envisions and demands. 

First of all, this downturn is not—I 

repeat ‘‘not’’—as serious as ever faced 

by our Nation. In the late 1970s and 

early 1980s, the conditions were much 

worse: 3,000 banks failed. Interest rates 

shot up to 21 percent. Hundreds of agricultural banks failed. In using the powers of the FDIC and their emergency 

authorities, we worked it out without 1 

cent being charged to the taxpayer. 

Madam Speaker, I want to thank you 

for giving me the time this evening. We 

face a real financial crisis, and we 

ought to stay here until we resolve it 

the right way, not the fast way. 

f 

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a 

previous order of the House, the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. 

JONES) is recognized for 5 minutes. 

(Mr. JONES addressed the House. His 

remarks will appear hereafter in the 

Extensions of Remarks.) 

f 

SUNSET MEMORIAL 

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a 

previous order of the House, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. FRANKS) is 

recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, I 

stand once again before this House with yet 

another Sunset Memorial. 

It is October 2, 2008 in the land of the free 

and the home of the brave, and before the 

sun set today in America, almost 4,000 more 

defenseless unborn children were killed by 

abortion on demand. That’s just today, Mr. 

Speaker. That’s more than the number of innocent lives lost on September 11 in this 

country, only it happens every day. 

It has now been exactly 13,037 days since 

the tragedy called Roe v. Wade was first 

handed down. Since then, the very foundation 

of this Nation has been stained by the blood 

of almost 50 million of its own children. Some 

of them, Mr. Speaker, cried and screamed as 

they died, but because it was amniotic fluid 

passing over the vocal cords instead of air, we 

couldn’t hear them. 

All of them had at least four things in common. First, they were each just little babies 

who had done nothing wrong to anyone, and 

each one of them died a nameless and lonely 

death. And each one of their mothers, whether 

she realizes it or not, will never be quite the 

same. And all the gifts that these children 

might have brought to humanity are now lost 

forever. Yet even in the glare of such tragedy, 

this generation still clings to a blind, invincible 

ignorance while history repeats itself and our 

own silent genocide mercilessly annihilates the 

most helpless of all victims, those yet unborn. 

Mr. Speaker, perhaps it’s time for those of 

us in this Chamber to remind ourselves of why 

we are really all here. Thomas Jefferson said, 

‘‘The care of human life and its happiness and 

not its destruction is the chief and only object 

of good government.’’ The phrase in the 14th 

Amendment capsulizes our entire Constitution. 

It says, ‘‘No State shall deprive any person of 

life, liberty or property without due process of 

law.’’ Mr. Speaker, protecting the lives of our 

innocent citizens and their constitutional rights 

is why we are all here. 

The bedrock foundation of this Republic is 

the clarion declaration of the self-evident truth 

that all human beings are created equal and 

endowed by their Creator with the unalienable 

rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Every conflict and battle our Nation has 

ever faced can be traced to our commitment 

to this core, self-evident truth. 

It has made us the beacon of hope for the 

entire world. Mr. Speaker, it is who we are. 

And yet today another day has passed, and 

we in this body have failed again to honor that 

foundational commitment. We have failed our 

sworn oath and our God-given responsibility 

as we broke faith with nearly 4,000 more innocent American babies who died today without 

the protection we should have given them. 

So Mr. Speaker, let me conclude this Sunset Memorial in the hope that perhaps someone new who heard it tonight will finally embrace the truth that abortion really does kill little babies; that it hurts mothers in ways that 

we can never express; and that 13,037 days 

spent killing nearly 50 million unborn children 

in America is enough; and that it is time that 

we stood up together again, and remembered 

that we are the same America that rejected 

human slavery and marched into Europe to arrest the Nazi Holocaust; and we are still courageous and compassionate enough to find a 

better way for mothers and their unborn babies than abortion on demand. 

Mr. Speaker, as we consider the plight of 

unborn America tonight, may we each remind 

ourselves that our own days in this sunshine 

of life are also numbered and that all too soon 

each one of us will walk from these Chambers 

for the very last time. 

And if it should be that this Congress is allowed to convene on yet another day to come, 

may that be the day when we finally hear the 

cries of innocent unborn children. May that be 

the day when we find the humanity, the courage, and the will to embrace together our 

human and our constitutional duty to protect 

these, the least of our tiny, little American 

brothers and sisters from this murderous 

scourge upon our Nation called abortion on 

demand. 

It is October 2, 2008, 13,037 days since 

Roe versus Wade first stained the foundation 

of this Nation with the blood of its own children; this in the land of the free and the home 

of the brave. 

f 

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a 

previous order of the House, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. BURTON) is 

recognized for 5 minutes. 


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