H60 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE January 7, 2009 

trade it in, because I don’t have a down 

payment for another car. I would be 

without a car, so I have to keep paying 

on this gas-guzzler. I would like to get 

a more efficient car. 

This would allow those people to buy 

a new car, a more efficient car. It is 

good for everybody. 

But we come back to what I said earlier: If people cannot buy cars, then it 

doesn’t matter how many trillions of 

dollars we give to the auto makers, 

they are going to still ultimately go 

out of business. And the trouble with 

bailouts is once you start giving money 

to anybody, whether it is a bank, an insurance company, whoever, once you 

start that process, you will always be 

able to find someone more deserving of 

a bailout than those who have already 

gotten money, and there becomes no 

good place to stop. 

Well, when you love someone and you 

see that they are getting addicted to 

some substance, and as a judge I saw it, 

you see them getting addicted to something, then it is time to have an interdiction and say I love you too much to 

allow you to continue this addiction. 

We are not going to let you have any 

more of that. 

Now, I was upset when we were talking about an auto bailout, because I 

knew the auto makers had been withholding hold-back money, rebate 

money, that they contractually owed 

dealers. They were putting dealers in a 

bind just because they weren’t abiding 

by their own contracts. As I understand it, they have begun to catch up 

on that, and that is appropriate. 

But to see then letters from major 

banks who have gotten billions of tax 

dollars who are now saying we are not 

going to be lending money for cars, we 

are not going to be lending money to 

dealers anymore, even though they are 

wonderful dealers, they have a good 

business, it looks like they will stay in 

business for good, we are just not going 

to lend anymore, that is such an abuse 

and 180 degrees from what was promised. 

Now, some would say we should not 

get the Federal Government into the 

business of telling lenders what to do 

with their money, and I am one of 

those. However, the danger that every 

bank should have been told by their attorneys is, keep in mind if you take 

Federal money, the Federal Government is going to have their hand in 

your business and they are going to 

tell you how to run it, because they are 

a partner with you. And I happen to believe if we are going to put Federal 

money in something, we should have 

restrictions and tell people like a bank 

that this is what you can and can’t do. 

Secretary Paulson did not do that. 

But my preference is don’t give away 

any more bailout money. Let’s let the 

people that earned it keep it and let 

them decide who deserves to be bailed 

out and who deserves to have their 

products purchased. That is how a free 

market works. 

When you look back, you see that an 

open government is a good thing, a free 

market is a good thing. To my way of 

thinking, being such a student of history, it looks like from our founding 

documents the most important job 

that we have as a Federal Government 

is to provide for the common defense. 

Then, beyond that, this Federal Government should create a level playing 

field, punish cheaters, make sure everybody plays fairly, and then let them 

play. That is what we need to be doing, 

and we have gone so far in excess of 

that. 

This government, when I heard that 

we were going to encourage a car czar, 

I couldn’t believe it. I mean, we can’t 

even do a good job of designing our own 

I.D. card. Can you imagine what we 

would do with cars? Good grief. We 

should not be in that business. 

So I would encourage people, Mr. 

Speaker, who believe that they would 

do a better job of spending their own 

money, to contact their Representative, contact their Senator, call the 

Capitol Hill operator and they can be 

connected to their Representative, 

their Senators, and that would go a 

long way toward getting this bill to the 

floor and getting it passed. Because it 

is not an issue of if the money will be 

spent, it is an issue of will the Treasury Secretary squander it on your behalf, or will you be able to use your 

own money to help get this economy 

turned around. 

f 

REVIEWING THE NATION’S LONGTERM ECONOMY 

The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. 

YARMUTH). Under a previous order of 

the House, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. WOLF) is recognized for 5 

minutes. 

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I have been 

concerned about the financial future of 

our country for some time and in 2006 

introduced a bill to set up a national 

commission to review our Nation’s 

long-term economy, including mandatory entitlement spending, discretionary spending and tax policy. It is 

bipartisan. We have well over 100 members from both sides of the aisle. 

b 1400 

The bipartisan Cooper-Wolf SAFE 

proposal was similar to the commission 

proposal by Senator CONRAD and Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, 

would be bipartisan and a way to review entitlement spending and force 

the Congress to act. The commission 

has over 100 cosponsors during the last 

Congress. 

We’ve all read, Mr. Speaker, the 

stark figures of the 2008 Financial Report of the Federal Government. Even 

more telling is, during the month of 

October and November, for the first 2 

months of this fiscal year, the Federal 

Government piled up $401 billion in red 

ink, and we’re on a pace to surpass the 

fiscal year 2008 deficit of 455; in 2 

months almost we’re going to rival 

that. 

And yesterday, President-elect 

Obama predicted a $1 trillion deficit, 

he said, ‘‘for years to come.’’ 

Now, does anybody really care? It 

just seems that this institution continues to go and do what it’s done in 

the past. In the past few days, numerous sources have reported that the economic stimulus is expected to cost $675 

billion, and some are saying up to $1 

trillion. 

Mr. Speaker, whatever package is 

voted on, Congress has the obligation 

to their children and their grandchildren and to their constituents to 

find a bipartisan way to address the 

Nation’s looming financial crisis by including a mechanism to deal with the 

underlying problem, what is now on 

auto-pilot spending. If we don’t do this 

in this Congress when we’re doing the 

stimulus, I think both political parties 

in this Congress, the 111th Congress, 

will go down as the Congress that refused to deal with the fundamental 

issues that are facing this country. 

There’s the Simon and Garfunkel 

song, The Boxer, that says ‘‘Man hears 

what he wants to hear and disregards 

the rest.’’ 

This Congress disregards the overwhelming debt that we have faced in 

this Nation. I have here, Mr. Speaker, 

a bill issued by the Federal Reserve of 

Zimbabwe in July of last year. It’s $100 

billion. $100 billion. It won’t even buy a 

loaf of bread. Is this the future of our 

country? 

And if this Congress, and let me just 

say to my colleagues on this side, if 

our party doesn’t deal with this issue, 

and they don’t deal with this issue 

then, frankly, this Congress will go 

down in Congress’ history as the Congress that’s neglected to deal with 

these fundamental issues. 

So many say, why a short-term stimulus simultaneously with this? Well, it 

takes two legs to walk. If we can demonstrate that we are dealing with the 

entitlement issue now, that may very 

well get whatever short-term thing 

we’re going to do to demonstrate that 

we have the commitment to make it 

work. 

Isabel Sawhill, Senior Fellow at the 

Brookings Institute, has likened the 

situation in our country, she said, to 

‘‘termites in the woodwork, slowly 

eroding our strength as a nation.’’ 

I recently read a speech by Richard 

Fisher, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas; it’s called Storms 

on the Horizon. It’s a sobering account 

from a monetary policy point of view 

of why deficits matter. And it is frightening. I put it in the CONGRESSIONAL

RECORD every day. I would hope Members of Congress could read it. 

But what he said is doing deficit 

math is a sobering exercise. It becomes 

an outright painful one when you apply 

your calculator to long-term fiscal 

challenge posed by entitlement programs. Then he goes on to say that we 

are facing catastrophic conditions. Our 

children, our grandchildren, our constituents are facing a catastrophic condition if we don’t act. 

Some people say we need regular 

order. Frankly, if we don’t do this in a 


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January 7, 2009 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE H61 

bipartisan way, 8 Republicans, 8 Democrats, similar to what we did on the 

Iraq Study Group, frankly, I think this 

Congress will not have the courage, the 

foresight, the ability to vote on these 

issues to deal with it. 

So what we are saying is a massive 

package up-or-down vote, 8 Republicans, 8 Democrats, this bill was drafted by the Heritage Foundation, by the 

Brookings Institution, supported by 

David Walker, supported by David 

Broder, by David Brooks, by economists all over the country, and then it 

uses the language that is in the Base 

Closing Commission that requires, because if you don’t require this institution to act it will not act. It will find 

all the reasons it can to neglect it. It 

will require it to act in 60 days. 

So I say to my colleagues on this 

side, if we’re going to deal with this 

stimulus, we’d better have our own 

ideas and put up for a proposal, which 

I will do unless I’m tied and gagged, I 

will offer a motion here to force us to 

vote on this. 

And I say for the other side, I ask 

you to do the same thing so we could 

come together in a bipartisan way so 

when we leave this Congress we know 

that we have truly dealt with the entitlement issue and saved America for 

our children and our grandchildren and 

future generations. 

f 

OUR ECONOMIC SITUATION AND 

FOREIGN POLICY 

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under 

the Speaker’s announced policy of January 18, 2007, the gentleman from California (Mr. SHERMAN) is recognized for 

60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I will take much but 

not all of this hour to speak. Roughly, 

the first half of the presentation will 

be on our economic situation. The second half will focus on foreign policy. 

I know that I have a number of colleagues that may have important 

things to say to this House, and if they 

come to the floor, I’ll be happy to yield 

them a few minutes at a time that is 

convenient for them. 

Even with this long speech, I will not 

be able to cover all the details that I’d 

like to provide to my colleagues. 

Therefore, I invite all my colleagues to 

visit the relevant portion of my web 

page, bradsherman.house.gov for more 

of the details of the matters I’ll be discussing here. 

In talking about our economy, I will 

divide my speech first to talking about 

matters relevant to the Financial Services Committee, on which I’ve served 

for 12 years, and particularly the bill 

known as TARP, or EESA, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, best 

known to the public as the $700 billion 

bailout bill. 

The second part of my economic presentation will deal with the stimulus 

package now being put together, particularly by the Committees on Appropriations and Ways and Means. 

Now, I was a critic and twice voted 

against the $700 billion bailout bill, the 

so-called TARP. The supporters of that 

bill will have to admit that it has not 

restored our economy as the proponents had advertised, and, in fact, 

some of the worst times for the economy were the 2 to 3 weeks following its 

passage. 

On the other hand, those of us who 

were critics should admit that the bill 

has, frankly, cost the government far 

less than I had anticipated. When I say 

cost, I don’t mean just how much is 

spent, but from that must be subtracted the value of the securities, the 

bonds and the stock certificates received by the Federal Government. 

In this case, Secretary Paulson misled this House and the other body by 

testifying that he would use the $700 

billion to buy toxic assets, bad bonds. 

Had he done that, and all of us voting 

on the bill had every reason to believe 

that he was telling us the truth, had he 

carried out that policy, then he would 

have bought, for the money he had 

spent, whether it’s the 350 billion he 

has spent so far or the 700 billion that 

I feared he would spend, he would have 

spent that money in return for assets 

of dubious value. That’s why they’re 

called toxic assets. 

In contrast, having misled the House 

and the other body, Secretary Paulson 

bought preferred stock in the various 

financial institutions. In doing so, he 

was overly generous to Wall Street as 

to the terms, but, nevertheless, he did 

secure assets for the Treasury that are 

of substantial value. 

Paulson’s shift, frankly, was right 

along the lines that many of us who 

are critics of the bill had urged him to 

adopt. And so those who supported the 

bill, those who are critics of it, must 

both recognize that what the Treasury 

has done so far is far different from 

what all of us believed would, in fact, 

be the policy. 

Now, we see that $350 billion has been 

expended by the Treasury, and another 

$350 billion remains unspent. I am 

pleased that the Secretary of the 

Treasury has not yet taken the procedural actions to release and give himself control of the remaining $350 billion. 

It is my understanding that leadership will bring to this House a bill that 

will release the $350 billion to the 

Treasury and will impose additional 

conditions. And I’d like to take a few 

minutes to address what I think ought 

to be in that bill. 

First, is the issue of whether any of 

the funds to be released, any of that 

second $350 billion, will be available to 

the Bush administration. Last month I 

wrote the chairman of the Financial 

Services Committee saying that we 

should have limits on the amount that 

could be spent by the Bush administration out of the second $350 billion. In 

fact, I proposed that only $10 billion or 

less be available to the Bush administration to deal with whatever exigencies it dealt with in its waning days. It 

is my understanding that the bill that 

will be brought before this House will 

provide the Bush administration with 

$0 to deal with whatever comes up in 

its last week or so in office. 

In any case, I think, having seen 

Paulson in action, the vast majority of 

this House would believe that somewhere between 95 percent and 100 percent of the second $350 billion, if it is 

made available to anyone in the executive branch should be made available 

only to the Obama administration. 

I should point out something about 

process. It would be best if any bill 

dealing with the second $350 billion was 

actually dealt with in regular order. 

Now, I’m not saying necessarily that 

every committee of possible jurisdiction should do a full markup, but as we 

deal with this economic crisis, at least 

the primary committee as to each bill 

should have a markup so that Members 

can be heard, and the House can work 

its will. 

In addition, I would hope that the 

Rules Committee would allow a reasonable number of amendments to be considered on the floor. 

In addition, I would hope that the Financial Services Committee would give 

the same scrutiny to the financial institutions who have received and are 

likely to receive additional bailout 

monies as we gave to the executives of 

the three automobile makers. 

We need extensive hearings. We need 

to bring the titans of Wall Street down, 

and we need to have these hearings at 

both the full committee and the subcommittee level. 

We do not want to give further credence to the accusation that Congress 

and the administration have two standards for scrutinizing bailout requests, 

one for those who shower before work 

and a more severe standard for those 

who must shower after work. We 

should have at least the same amount 

of scrutiny to an industry that has already received the bulk of $350 billion 

as we provided to an automobile industry that is requesting amounts less 

than 5 percent of that amount. 

Now, what should we provide in the 

way of restrictions to those who obtain 

bailout funds or retain the bailout 

funds they have already received? 

Federal dollars should be expended to 

bail out private interests only on the 

toughest terms. Taxpayers should demand the highest yield, the largest equity upside, the strictest limits on executive compensation and perks. Even 

when we bail out individual homeowners rather than big time executives 

and shareholders of major companies, 

the Treasury should get a large share 

of the profit that they earn when they 

sell their homes. 

Why is it so important that we are 

tough on those who seek bailout funds? 

There are three important reasons. 

First, being tough will increase support 

for the program. The public is currently focused on executive compensation and perks. I think it will soon 

focus on the value of the securities the 


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