H10820 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE October 3, 2008 

Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, today 

we passed a truly historic bill because 

the Secretary of Treasury had come 

forward and told us that if we didn’t 

pass it, we were to be afraid, be very 

afraid. 

So people were beginning to panic 

around the country. Credit was freezing up. It was before and even more so 

after he spoke. And so it was necessary 

that we do something. 

For most of us, we heard from a lot 

of people saying please don’t bail out 

Wall Street, don’t give them $700 billion. The last couple of days we heard 

from car dealers, from bankers, from 

shopkeepers, small mom and pop businesses about to go out of business saying you’ve got to do something. So Secretary Paulson’s scare tactics had 

worked. The underlying problems may 

still be there. In fact, some of them 

are, and we still need to address them, 

and I have confidence that we will. 

The underlying banks had money. 

The community banks, solid. But there 

is a crisis of confidence and lending is 

coming to a halt. 

Now, some problems in the industry 

were created by Congress where we 

forced people to lend money to people 

they wouldn’t have otherwise. That’s a 

problem. That needed to be fixed. But 

we were told basically in theory by the 

Secretary that this would be a type of 

shock and awe, that we would put so 

much money into the Wall Street market that it would shock the economy 

and people would respond favorably 

and everything would be great as a result. 

I, like my friend Ms. FOXX, hope that 

this works. I don’t think it was necessary. I think it was problematic. And 

it ought to scare people when the government says, we need $700 billion to 

bail out an industry and that will 

make everybody better, and please 

raise the debt ceiling by $1.3 trillion. I 

thought it was just $700 billion. Well, 

we raised the debt ceiling by $1.3 trillion today just in case. 

Apparently, the good news is we will 

spend $700 billion completely at the 

Secretary of the Treasury’s whim, as 

he determines. You will see in the bill, 

those that bothered to read it, over and 

over ‘‘as the Secretary determines,’’ 

‘‘as the Secretary determines.’’ And 

then we are going to have to hire some 

people to manage all these assets that 

we’re buying. That may be outside the 

$700 billion. Maybe that’s why we need 

to raise the limit to $1.3 trillion. 

But being an historical fan, being 

such a student of history, you cannot 

find in the history of the Nation a time 

before when this government, this Congress, had so much faith in one person 

that they said, ‘‘Here is $700 billion. Do 

with it as you will. Make our Nation 

well.’’ 

Now, if you go back before our Constitution of 1787, you will find that one 

time something like this was done, in 

1776, December 27 to be exact. Many of 

the people that had signed up in the 

Army had done so for 6 months, and 

they signed up around the time of the 

Declaration of Independence; so their 

time was going to be up in January. 

The Continental Congress heard that 

many of them would not reenlist; so 

they were scared. 

George Washington never asked for 

this kind of power, but they knew this 

man. They knew he was not in it for 

himself and he wouldn’t reward his 

friends. He was doing everything he 

could, to the tune of sacrificing his life 

and his fortune to help create this 

great land. So they gave him this 

power. He didn’t use it. When he tried 

to get the guys to enlist, he gave one of 

the most impassioned speeches, and his 

pure leadership and example was 

enough to inspire them. 

Well, there’s a picture in the Rotunda just down the hall of him coming 

in. He wrote Bible verses on his resignation, and he tendered the resignation and did something no one had ever 

done in history: led a Revolutionary 

Army, won the Revolution, and then 

came in, resigned, and went home. Nobody had ever done it before or since. 

They could trust that man. 

I’ve studied history. I am a fan of 

George Washington. He is a hero of 

mine. And Secretary Henry Paulson is 

no George Washington. 

So let me leave you with this: When 

you hear anybody in the government 

say ‘‘We’re going to take your tax dollars and we’re going to make you 

money,’’ then that’s when you need to 

be afraid because they have moved over 

into the socialist realm. And you can 

always make more money than the 

government can. 

That’s the thought I leave with you, 

with the hope and prayer that this does 

inspire the confidence that was looked 

for so the economy does free up. I had 

hoped leadership would do it, but now 

apparently it will take $700 billion, and 

may God help us all. 

f 

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a 

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

recognized for 5 minutes. 

(Mr. BURTON of Indiana addressed 

the House. His remarks will appear 

hereafter in the Extensions of Remarks.) 

f 

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a 

previous order of the House, the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DEFAZIO) is 

recognized for 5 minutes. 

(Mr. DEFAZIO addressed the House. 

His remarks will appear hereafter in 

the Extensions of Remarks.) 

f 

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a 

previous order of the House, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. KAPTUR) is recognized for 5 minutes. 

(Ms. KAPTUR addressed the House. 

Her remarks will appear hereafter in 

the Extensions of Remarks.) 

f 

THE MAJORITY PARTY 

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a 

previous order of the House, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LATOURETTE) is 

recognized for 5 minutes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Mr. Speaker, this 

has been one heck of a day here on Capitol Hill. As a matter of fact, it’s been 

one heck of a week. 

About 13 days ago, the Secretary of 

the Treasury came down to Capitol 

Hill, said that our markets are a mess, 

Wall Street’s a mess, and if we don’t 

give him $700 billion immediately, it’s 

going to be a big problem. And we take 

that seriously. 

But then there was a little investigation, and they asked the Treasury, 

Where did you come up with the number $700 billion? Well, they answered it 

last week in Forbes Magazine, and 

here’s the Treasury spokeswoman’s 

quote: ‘‘It’s not based on any particular 

data point. We just really wanted to 

come up with a really big number.’’ 

Well, they succeeded. Seven hundred 

billion dollars is a really, really big 

number. It means really, really big 

things to Americans. 

A lot of us, because the Treasury 

Secretary also indicated that he could 

only spend $50 billion of your money a 

month, we had an amendment last 

night and we said let’s make it a lot 

less. Let’s save half a trillion dollars, 

and let’s give him some money. If he’s 

right, he can rescue the economy and 

everything will be all right. We’re 

going to put in place some reforms, and 

we will come back on November 17 and 

we will figure out whether it’s working 

or not. That sounded like a pretty reasonable plan to a lot of reasonable people. 

But that didn’t happen. People who 

watch the House know that everything 

that comes to the floor comes to the 

floor pursuant to a rule. And the Rules 

Committee voted on that proposal last 

night, to save half a trillion dollars. 

And they voted ‘‘no,’’ 8–4. And, sadly, 

all 8 were members of the Democratic 

Party. 

Each of us represents about 600,000 

people. So 4.8 million people basically, 

through their representatives, denied 

305 million Americans the opportunity 

to have a vote, to take 10 minutes and 

take a vote about whether or not we 

could save half a trillion dollars and 

perhaps not give the whole $700 billion 

of tax money to the Treasury. 

Then the bill left the House, and it 

went over to our good friends in the 

Senate, who, of course, are very fiscally conservative. They’re wiser than 

we are because they have 6-year terms; 

we only have 2-year terms. And do you 

think that they just were happy sending it back to us at $700 billion? No. 

They sent it back to us at $850 billion, 

and they added such wonderful things 

like $192 million for rum. 

Now, listen, I like rum. And it may 

be some of the Senators were nervous 

that they were losing the pirate vote. I 

don’t know. But there’s $192 million for 

rum, $100 million for NASCAR. I like 

NASCAR, but what’s it doing in this 

bill saving the treasury? There’s $81 

billion to Hollywood and $2 million for 

wooden arrows for children. 


rfrederick on PROD1PC67 with HOUSE