S10684 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE November 20, 2008 

will tell you what it means to ‘‘Senator 

Barb’’ from Maryland. It means that 

single mother, that single mother who 

is trying to hold her family together, 

maybe in a job that pays $10 or $12 an 

hour, trying to keep her kids together, 

collect her child support, make sure 

she has an 8-year-old car still running 

and make sure those kids are in school 

to do something. She does not have a 

lot of money, and we take a chunk of 

it. What about the farmer and what 

about the waterman who right now is 

out in this cold weather trying to bring 

oysters to our Thanksgiving table? We 

are going to have a table of bounty; 

they have a table of trouble. But no, we 

are going to take their money and give 

it to Paulson to give it to AIG. 

Mr. INHOFE. Would the Senator 

yield for one question? 

Ms. MIKULSKI. Let me finish describing the taxpayer, and I will come 

back to you. 

What about the waitress—you know, 

somebody who carries, in that diner, 

big plates of food? And what does she 

end up with at the end of the day? A 

few tips, a bad back, varicose veins, 

and a government that is not on her 

side. That is where Paulson got the 

money from. OK. So that is where that 

$700 billion came from. Then I will talk 

about what he did with it. 

I turn to my colleague. 

Mr. INHOFE. I thank the Senator for 

yielding. I appreciate the very favorable comments she has made about my 

legislation. What is interesting about 

this is it is supported by a whole host— 

Senator SANDERS is supporting it, as 

well as on the far right we have Senator COBURN and Senator DEMINT. So 

we are not the only ones who feel this 

way. 

But the point I would like to make 

and ask you if you agree is, $700 billion—you heard me describe how to put 

that in and understand how much that 

means to the American people. It is 

$5,000 for each family who files a tax 

return. We have an opportunity to save 

half of that right now. I would encourage the Senator from Maryland to join 

in this effort because I think it can get 

done and it could get done during this 

time. 

Ms. MIKULSKI. Well, I will consider 

looking at his legislation, I assure him 

on the floor. I think we are in agreement with some of the principles you 

articulated earlier. 

But let me go on with my speech and 

see if we can’t find that sensible center, that common ground we both 

would like to perceive because when I 

say, What were the Congress and the 

American people promised for this astronomical sum of money we gave, we 

were promised by the Secretary of the 

Treasury, on behalf of the President of 

the United States, that the investment 

of the taxpayer would go to stabilizing 

the financial system, get credit flowing 

again in our communities, and get the 

economy rolling. What did we get? We 

got bait and switched from Paulson. 

Paulson changed his plan. He originally said he would use it to open credit and to also deal with the toxic mortgages. Now he is using it for money to 

buy ownership in banks and not asking 

anything in return. Paulson threw 

money at the banks with no strings attached. We have now spent close to $350 

billion, and where are we? We are nowhere. The stock market is down and 

unemployment is up. Things have actually gotten worse. People continue to 

lose their homes. Now they are losing 

their life savings. And with our inaction on unemployment, they will lose 

their jobs. 

So let’s talk about them that got. Do 

you remember their greed? Do you remember their incompetence on Wall 

Street that got us into this economic 

Superfund site? 

What did Wall Street say over the 

last several years to regulators and 

policymakers? Stay away. Get out of 

the way. It is our way or the highway. 

Having gotten buckets of bucks from 

the taxpayer, what does Wall Street 

say? Stay out of the way. Get out of 

the way. It is our way. And by the way, 

give us more, and let us keep our high 

pay. 

Well, it is not only what we hear 

from them, it is what we don’t hear 

from them. You know what is so shocking to me. After this money goes to the 

big banks, there is no sense of gratitude. There is no sense of gratitude 

that that waitress, that single mother, 

that farmer, that firefighter is willing 

to do this—no sense of gratitude. There 

is also no sense of remorse on how they 

got us into this terrible situation. 

I know the Presiding Officer is a man 

of faith, as are our colleague from 

Oklahoma and myself. In my faith, 

when you have sinned, the way you get 

it right is you show remorse, you 

promise not to sin any more. You say: 

Let’s make amends. How can I get it 

right? 

Have we heard that out of them? I 

have read every paper, heard every conversation. There is not one bit of remorse. They swagger around and say: 

There are three Americas—North 

America, South America, and corporate America. They treat themselves 

like a free trade zone. Hello. Do they 

promise to sin no more? Do we see a 

sense in the passion for reform coming 

out of them, saying: Boy, did we screw 

up; we now want to get it right? No. Do 

they say: Let’s make amends? And the 

way they want to say let’s make 

amends would be to work with our economic people to get jobs, credit, and 

our economy rolling. No. So what, instead, do those who have gotten bailout money do? They give themselves 

lavish salaries, bonuses, big perks such 

as spa retreats and golf tournaments in 

the most luxurious places in the world. 

And we are told that in order for them 

to keep talent, they have to pay big bonuses or people will walk away. They 

say that in order to keep the big talent 

at the big banks, they have to give big 

bonuses. I want to say, if they want to 

go, it is OK by me. I am an investor. 

Not as a Senator, but as a taxpayer, 

Why would we want to hold on to 

them? They got us into this mess. So it 

is OK by me if they go. There are plenty of talented people ready to go to 

work for our country. 

This is what ‘‘Senator Barb’’ wants 

to say to Wall Street: We do not want 

to be passive investors. We want to be 

active investors, not in a socialist form 

of government, picking winners and 

losers, but, by God, have a sense of reform. Cull out what is the best way to 

have sensible regulation. Come up with 

the great ideas to get our economy 

going and use the power and muscle of 

America’s financial system. There is 

talent there to do that. If you need a 

lavish bonus to do this, then leave. 

Leave or get out of the way. There is a 

new sheriff coming to town, and I am 

part of that posse. There are not only 

young people but a lot of people who 

want to rebuild our country. 

So I say to those on Wall Street who 

feel they can’t work for less than $14 

million a year, you now work for the 

United States of America. Once we 

started making that public investment 

in you, you now work for the United 

States. Work for the United States. 

Give us your best thinking. Give us 

your energy. Give us your ideas. What 

I want to say to them is: It is time to 

restore our economy, restore our national honor. 

I say to those who are working in the 

economic system, pull up your pants 

and your pantsuits and start to go to 

work. Let’s rebuild the economy. 

I yield the floor. 

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Tennessee. 

f 

AUTOMAKER BAILOUT 

Mr. CORKER. Mr. President, it is a 

pleasure to be back here this week. I 

hope the Presiding Officer and his family have a wonderful holiday season 

when we leave tomorrow. I rise today 

to talk about the proposed automaker 

bailout. I have tremendous empathy 

for all of the people involved. I spent 

most of my life in business. I am sure 

these CEOs and others leading these 

companies are going through tumultuous times. I empathize with them. 

In my beginning period, I was a cardcarrying union member. I know there 

are a lot of workers who are very concerned about their future. I have tremendous empathy for them and their 

families. This is actually a very serious 

time in our history. Regardless of 

where you are, people are concerned 

about the future. I was in other parts 

of the world last week. All around the 

world, people are concerned about the 

future. 

I do want to speak to the speech of 

the Senator from Maryland regarding 

the financial component. Many of the 

car dealers who have called into our office actually are far less concerned 

about the Big Three. What they are 

more concerned about is having financing for consumers who are coming into 


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November 20, 2008 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — SENATE S10685 

their dealerships. Like her, I want to 

see people throughout our country be 

able to operate their businesses. I am 

certainly not here to defend any of the 

Secretaries or anybody else. I will say 

that I did have a conversation yesterday with Secretary Paulson and with 

Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke. 

They are putting in place a facility to 

deal with consumer finance that hopefully will be in place by year end to 

help deal with some of the financing 

components that are stressing the 

automakers. 

I wish to specifically address the request by the automakers. I was privileged to be part of a hearing the other 

day in banking where the three CEOs 

and the leader of the United Auto 

Workers testified. I was struck by the 

lack of coherence, the fact that we had 

three leaders in corporate America 

whom I actually have a degree of respect for. I was in some ways embarrassed for some of them. They evidently had no plan. They felt in the 

Senate and in the House today the 

time was good for receiving moneys 

from taxpayers. It was sort of a ‘‘get 

here while the getting is good,’’ if you 

will. It was embarrassing to hear their 

testimony and the lack of thought that 

had been put into place as it related to 

the request. They had come up with a 

number of $25 billion. They were actually hesitant to tell us how, as a pact, 

the three of them had decided to divide 

this money. After a lot of probing, we 

were able to get them to say that they 

have decided to divide the money based 

on their proportional share of the auto 

market. 

I pressed them to find out if we did, 

in fact, agree to loan them this $25 billion, would that be it? It was evident 

that, no, this was a downpayment and 

that they had done nothing whatsoever 

to think about what might happen 

after the taxpayers invested in them. 

One of the questions I wish to ask is: 

Why would we address these three 

automakers as some homogeneous 

group? They are three different companies. They are in three different circumstances. It is interesting to me 

that the head of the United Auto Workers knows that they are in three different circumstances. What he said was 

that Ford was actually in good shape. 

They had made some tough decisions 

and done some things back in the year 

2006 that have put them in place to actually survive. They have about $23 billion of cash right now. He said he had 

been in to look at the books and Chrysler was actually in second place. I 

would have thought that Chrysler actually would have been the weakest of 

the three. Their books are not public 

because they are a private company. 

He laid out the fact that actually 

Chrysler was in a stronger position but 

that GM was a company that was in 

more disarray. So as we look at this, I 

find it so irresponsible that we would 

actually even talk about a rescue package, looking at these companies as a 

group. They are three very different 

companies that have addressed their 

issues in three very different ways. I 

find it incredibly irresponsible to even 

consider looking at them as a group. 

I wonder, in a market with 10 million 

cars being sold, why we need three domestic automakers. I wonder whether 

we would be better off if possibly we 

had two or we had one that was strong. 

Again, that is something that the market can decide. 

One of the greatest disservices we 

could actually do to these automakers 

and to the many people who depend 

upon them for employment, whether 

they be direct employees or tier 1 or 2 

suppliers, is to grant them this money. 

That would be a major mistake. These 

companies have all kinds of legacy 

issues they have not been able to deal 

with. Let me point out one. General 

Motors has 7,000 dealers. They probably 

need about 1,500 dealers. What the dealers did years ago is, they went around 

and got States to pass laws that said 

that GM could not do away with their 

dealerships. We have had the strong 

dealers actually calling our office and 

telling us they actually have hurt 

themselves by putting these State laws 

in place, because there are so many 

dealers that each of them is having 

trouble making a profit. It would be a 

tremendous disservice for us to grant 

money to these companies without 

causing them to reorganize. 

There is something we have in this 

country called bankruptcy protection. 

There is something that allows companies to go in and reorganize, to put 

their strengths in order, do away with 

their weaknesses and actually carry 

on. I do hope as we debate this—I realize nothing is going to happen this 

week; this was kind of a 

preapplication; that we will probably 

be dealing with this in January—but I 

do hope we will look at this in a mature way and realize that these companies have not done the things they 

should have done, maybe that they 

could have done, and that possibly we 

can be of service to them by making 

them do the things they need to do. 

Another example: Chrysler Company 

has a situation where when they idle a 

plant, they actually, in some cases, are 

obligated to pay the workers of those 

plants for up to 4 years beyond the 

time the plant is idle. I don’t know of 

any business in the world that can survive in a healthy fashion with those 

types of obligations. 

I have tremendous empathy for the 

people involved. One of these companies has a plant in our State. But I say 

to my colleagues, the worst thing we 

could possibly do in this situation is to 

acquiesce to this request that lacked 

coherence, lacked thoughtfulness, 

lacked a plan as to how these companies would be successful in the future, 

and let them go about their business in 

the way that they have been going 

about it. They will be back, if this 

money is granted. I hope we will stand 

firm, that we will be responsible with 

taxpayer moneys, and that even 

though I am opposed to this, even if 

the money ends up being granted in 

some form or fashion, we will cause 

them to make the decisions that need 

to be made for them to actually be successful in the future. 

I thank the Chair and yield the floor. 

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Rhode Island. 

f 

EXTENDING UNEMPLOYMENT 

INSURANCE 

Mr. REED. Mr. President, I rise in 

support of extending unemployment insurance to help the 10 million jobless 

Americans, the most in a quarter century, who are searching for work. 

In the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis, turmoil on Wall Street, and 

decline in consumer spending, workers 

throughout this country are being 

given pink slips by the thousands. In 

fact, we are seeing record numbers 

today, further amplifying the depth 

and the seriousness of this employment 

crisis in the United States. The situation continues to worsen. This does not 

appear to be a passing trend, but, unfortunately, unless we do something 

quickly and appropriately, we can anticipate continuing job losses. We have 

already seen across the country individuals whom we know—family members, cousins, friends—who, one, are either losing their job, or, two, are being 

very concerned that their employment 

status is tenuous and at any moment 

they could be given the word that they 

have lost their job. Over the course of 

1 month, national job loss numbers 

jumped from 6.1 percent to 6.5 percent—an extraordinary jump in 1 

month. Updated State numbers, which 

will be released on Friday, will unfortunately likely continue to reflect this 

deterioration in our job markets. 

Despite this bad news, a resolution of 

this employment crisis does not seem 

to be approaching. As I suggested, 

there are indications this will get 

worse before it gets better—another 

reason to act now to try to provide support and assistance to those people who 

have worked and now find themselves 

without a job, through no fault of their 

own. 

In my home State of Rhode Island, 

these national trends are amplified 

dramatically. Nearly 9 percent of 

Rhode Islanders are now unemployed. 

That is 50,200 people. We are a small 

State with a relatively small population. Mr. President, 50,200 people are 

without work. They are searching for 

work. They are searching for answers. 

They are searching for help. We have to 

provide the help, and then the longterm answers. 

Job losses in Rhode Island are occurring in all sectors. This is not just one 

area of economic endeavor that is 

under stress. Every area is under 

stress. Workers in manufacturing 

plants have been particularly hurt, and 

that is another consequence or another 

aspect of this discussion of the support 

for the auto industry. We have thousands of jobs in Rhode Island that in 


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