H10690 CONGRESSIONAL RECORD — HOUSE October 2, 2008 

Deal-type jobs program, H.R. 3400, ‘‘Rebuilding America’s Infrastructure.’’ It will create millions of good-paying new jobs rebuilding our 

roads, bridges, water systems and sewer systems. 

6. American Manufacturing Policy: I am 

drafting the American Manufacturing Policy 

Act, which for the first time, will state that the 

maintenance of U.S. steel, automotive, and 

aerospace industries are vital to our national 

economic security and must be maintained 

through integrated public-private cooperation, 

new trade policies, and investment. 

7. Works Green Administration: I am also 

drafting plans for a green New Deal jobs program, in which the govemment creates millions of jobs by incentivizing the design, engineering, manufacturing, distribution and maintenance of millions of wind and solar microtechnologies for millions of homes and businesses, dramatically lowering energy costs 

and reducing our dependence on oil. 

8. Fair Trade: The U.S. has lost millions of 

good-paying jobs, and more jobs have been 

out-sourced. As you know, I have helped to 

lead the way in opposition to trade giveaways. 

I strongly urge repeal of NAFTA. We must include workers’ rights, human rights and environmental quality principles in all trade pacts. 

We must also protect the Great Lakes’ water 

resources from the reach of multi-national corporations. 

9. Education for All: I know families need 

help with the rising cost of day care. That is 

why I introduced H.R. 4060. a universal prekindergarten program to ensure that all children ages 3–5 have access to full-day, quality 

day care. 

10. Protecting Pensions: I am working to 

change bankruptcy laws so pensioners’ claims 

will be first, ahead of banks, and that corporate executives who misuse workers’ pension funds are subject to criminal penalties. I 

want to fully fund the Pension Benefit Guarantee Board. 

11. Social Security: From my first moments 

in Congress, I have exposed Wall Street’s efforts to privatize Social Security and attacked 

it in the Democratic Caucus when it was being 

proposed. Can you imagine where seniors 

would be today if Social Security had been 

turned over to the stock market? Social Security is solid through 2032 without any changes. 

12. Protect Bank Deposits: I will work to 

make sure the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, FDIC, has sufficient funds to provide 

for insurance of deposits up to $200,000 at all 

banks and savings and loans. This is an urgent matter since so many banks are said to 

be vulnerable. 

13. Protect Investors: Bring back strong regulation to Wall Street. As Chairman of the Domestic Policy Subcommittee, I challenged the 

Wall Street hedge fund speculators as a threat 

to small Investors. I intend to keep active 

watch over the machinations on Wall Street. 

14. Strength through Peace: You’ll remember when I led the effort against the ill-conceived Iraq war, which has now cost more 

than 4.100 U.S. soldiers’ lives, cost U.S. taxpayers between $3 trillion and $5 trillion, and 

resulted in the deaths of more than a million 

Iraqis. We must bring our troops home and 

end the war. We must engage in diplomacy. 

We must reduce the military budget, and we 

must stop outrageous cost overruns by the 

likes of Halliburton. 

16. Safety in America: I am proud of my 

work for peace. In July 2001, I introduced a 

bill, which today is H.R. 808, that for the first 

time creates a comprehensive plan to deal 

with the issues of violence in American society, particularly domestic violence, spousal 

abuse, child abuse, gang violence, gun violence, racial violence, and violence against 

gays by establishing a Cabinet-level Department of Peace and Restorative Justice. This 

proposal has sparked a national movement 

and when implemented will save taxpayers 

millions of dollars. 

16. Monetary Policy: It is long past the time 

that we looked at the implications of our debt 

based monetary system, the privatization of 

money created by the 1913 Federal Reserve 

Act. the banks fractional reserve system and 

our debt-based economic system. Unless we 

have dramatic reform of monetary policy, the 

entire economic system will continue to accelerate wealth upwards. I am currently working 

on drafting legislation for an ‘American Monetary Act’ to address these and other issues in 

order to protect the economic well-being of 

America. 

I yield to my friend from California, 

who has done such a wonderful job in 

organizing what is called the Skeptics 

Caucus, at a time where skepticism is 

called for. Through enlightened articulation of facts, he has come forward, as 

has my good friend and colleague from 

Ohio, Representative MARCY KAPTUR, 

who has courageously stood here day in 

and day out challenging this corrupt 

bailout. 

I yield to my friends, and I thank you 

for your service to America and for 

your service to your communities. 

f 

A SKEPTICAL VIEW OF THE WALL 

STREET BAILOUT 

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under 

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

the remainder of the time. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I thank the Chair. I 

have got 30 minutes, and I will share 

some with the gentlewoman from Ohio 

in just a second to describe the flaws 

with this bill. Believe it or not, 30 minutes is not long enough. But first I 

want to mention about the calls that 

are coming into our office. 

The calls used to be from people 

around the country. Now Wall Street 

firms have their employees unplugging 

those headsets to call investors and instead calling Members of Congress. So 

now the calls coming in to at least my 

office have shifted from 20–1 against 

this bailout package for Wall Street, 

down to about 3–1 or 4–1 against this 

bailout. 

I ask my colleagues not to be confused. Edit out some of those calls that 

are coming to you from folks who are 

being paid to make the call, and you 

will realize the country remains absolutely overwhelmingly opposed to this 

Wall Street bailout bill. 

I thank again the gentleman from 

Ohio, and I will make a few more 

points. 

We had a meeting of the Skeptics 

Caucus, which is now a bipartisan 

Skeptics Caucus, where we heard from 

Bill Isaac. Mr. Isaac was Chair of the 

FDIC, having first been appointed to 

that board by President Carter and 

then appointed by Reagan. You don’t 

find very many people who have support on both sides of the aisle like 

that. 

Bill Isaac led the FDIC in solving the 

1981 crisis, which was probably worse 

than the crisis that we have now. He 

used the emergency powers of the 

FDIC. He was able to solve that credit 

crisis without significant cost to the 

taxpayer. 

We ought to hear from Bill Isaac. 

And I look forward to us defeating this 

bill tomorrow so we can have hearings 

and all my colleagues, not just those 

who came to the Skeptics Caucus, can 

hear from Mr. Isaac and so many others, because the starting point is this 

testimony that we didn’t hear before 

any hearing, because there have been 

no hearings on this bill, but rather a 

letter sent to Members of Congress by 

hundreds of eminent economists, including three Nobel Laureates. And 

they said, we ask Congress not to rush, 

to hold appropriate hearings, and to 

carefully consider the right course of 

action. 

So, Nobel Laureates, economists eminent in their field, say the sky will not 

fall if we take some time. The only way 

to pass this bill is to keep up the panic. 

The panic has to be calmed down. We 

have got a few days. We have got a 

week. We have got 10 days, and that is 

more than enough time to write a 

much better bill. 

But let me summarize some of the 

other things that Bill Isaac told our 

Skeptics Caucus. A vote ‘‘no’’ on tomorrow’s bill is not a vote to do nothing. It is a vote to defeat that bill and 

to start writing a much better bill. 

Under the bill that comes before us 

tomorrow, in Mr. Isaac’s belief, half of 

all the money is going to be used to 

bail out foreign investors who made 

dumb business decisions. Now, I am not 

real sure that I want to use taxpayers’ 

money to bail out American investors 

who made bad business decisions. But 

why are we bailing out the Bank of 

China? Why are we bailing out the 

Saudi royal family? We are doing so because they demand it. They communicate those demands at the highest 

level to our administration. 

After I yield to the gentlewoman 

from Ohio, I will describe how the bill 

clearly provides that we can send as 

much money as Treasury wants not to 

bail out American investors, but to 

bail out foreign investors. And when I 

say foreign investors, I don’t just mean 

companies here in the United States 

that happen to have foreign owners. 

I have sought at the Rules Committee to simply put an amendment in 

this bill to say that we are not going to 

buy any toxic asset that wasn’t demonstrably owned by an American on September 20. That amendment will not be 

allowed. It was not allowed last time; 

it won’t be allowed this time. 

Why? Because they think they can 

hide from this Congress and from the 


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American people the fact that hundreds of billions of dollars are going to 

overseas investors. And there are 

transparency provisions in the bill on a 

lot of things, but the one thing that 

will never be revealed, when Goldman 

Sachs sells a bond on December 1 to 

Treasury, what will not be revealed is 

whether Goldman Sachs bought it from 

the Bank of China two or three days 

earlier with intention to sell to Treasury. We are going to be buying bonds 

that are currently in vaults in Beijing 

and London. 

What Mr. Isaac also pointed out is 

that this bill is not going to solve the 

problem. People think that if you act 

in a panic and you throw $700 billion at 

something, you are going to solve it. 

Hardly. In his estimation, the credit 

markets will not be appreciably working any better than they are today. 

They may loosen things up for a week 

or two, but you are looking at a December that is no better than it would 

be if we did not pass this bill. 

The FDIC could solve this problem 

under their existing powers. If they are 

a little shy to use those powers to the 

hilt, we can and should pass a bill that 

outlines that, yes, indeed, we do want 

them to use their powers. What should 

they do? They should provide for a 

temporary time a total guarantee on 

all of the general credit debt of banks, 

so the regulated commercial banks 

would be places where people know 

their money is safe. 

They are subject to regulation, and 

the main part of this crisis is that the 

banks are unwilling to lend to each 

other as they traditionally do because 

no one bank is sure that the other bank 

is safe. We have got to say the commercial banks of America are safe and tell 

investors around the world that is 

where they can put their money with 

total safety. 

Now, this leaves out some Wall 

Street entities that are desperate for 

that $700 billion. They can just taste it. 

But it allows us to solve this problem 

without appreciable cost to U.S. taxpayers. And the FDIC collects an insurance premium from the banks so it 

would be the financial system, not the 

American taxpayer, paying the cost of 

taking care of this risk. 

Now, I would hope that every Member of Congress has received my blue 

paper. I have sent it out today via email, I have handed it out on the floor, 

but I know there are a few that haven’t 

received it. Please contact my office 

and read these seven pages. Learn how 

this bill will send half the money to 

foreign investors. Learn how this bill 

bails out firms that will continue to 

pay $1 million a month salaries, and 

could raise those executives to $1.5 million a month, should they choose to do 

so. 

Please, read the paper. Read about 

the key provisions of the bill. Then you 

will be armed with the information 

necessary to deal with the fearmongers 

that tell you, well, you had to pass 

that bill. You had to dump $700 billion 

from a helicopter onto Wall Street, because somehow that was going to take 

a terrible economy and turn it into a 

great economy. 

Such an action will indeed, will indeed, make things better for a few Wall 

Street executives, and they are very 

determined, and their employees on 

company time are calling our office. 

With that, I yield to the gentlewoman from Ohio. 

Ms. KAPTUR. I thank the gentleman, 

the chairman of a subcommittee on 

International Relations, who has just 

dedicated himself, his great intelligence and great fervor, to helping to 

explain to the American people and our 

colleagues what is really at stake, and 

to try to move this institution, the 

House of Representatives, the closest 

body left at the Federal level to the 

American people, to move us to the 

right decision tomorrow. 

Tonight, so many of us, we are praying for our American republic, and we 

ask the American people to pray with 

us and to pray for this House, and to 

pray without fear. Franklin Roosevelt 

said, ‘‘All we have to fear is fear 

itself.’’ We need to make wise decisions; not decisions made in haste or in 

panic. 

If we vote ‘‘no’’ tomorrow, that is not 

a vote for no action. A ‘‘no’’ vote tomorrow will signal we want a better 

answer, and we will work here until we 

get it. 

The other night the Senate voted to 

pass their version of a bill, and the 

stock market went down. Explain that 

to me. They passed the bill. It goes 

down. 

b 2000 

I don’t think there is any relationship between day-to-day trades, what is 

happening in the markets and what is 

happening here. We know that there is 

a serious issue in our financial system 

because credit markets are seized up. 

As others have said, what we can do 

there is to ask the FDIC to employ its 

emergency powers, which are already 

law, and agree to cover all creditors, 

bondholders and depositors in those institutions and that that will take the 

fear out of that system because they’re 

scared, too, because they don’t know, if 

they borrow from bank X in another 

city, whether that bank will be around 

the next day. Those banks are liquid. 

In other words, they have money to 

lend, but they’re afraid, too. So we’ve 

got to get the fear out of the system. 

Let us pray to not have fear. 

If we pass the bill the administration 

has sent us, one of the things that’s 

going to happen, plus what they did 

over in the Senate, is that we’re going 

to add 870 more billion dollars to our 

debt. We can’t afford to do that right 

now. That is a very bad decision because we are in debt. We will be over 

$12 trillion in debt. The value of our 

dollar is already going down. This will 

push it down more, and our deficit is 

going up, which is not such a good position to be in. So we need a solution 

that doesn’t raise our deficit by any 

more. 

By declaring that emergency at the 

FDIC, it gives the FDIC and its bank 

examiners enormous powers to go 

around and to try to make the loans 

that are necessary, to work out real estate loans where those need to be 

worked out. They can even get into executive compensation, and they can 

look for fraudulent accounting 

throughout the country. That’s what 

bank examiners do, and they’re really 

good at it. Ask any banker. We need to 

enliven that system and make it function. 

Then we need to ask the Securities 

and Exchange Commission, which has 

moved along this week and has been 

doing better than it has in the past, to 

help these banks within their accounting systems give a true value to the 

real estate assets on their books and 

not to some artificial index that bears 

no relation to reality, to what has happened in Cleveland or in Toledo or anywhere else, and to use the private sector as we did back in the 1980s—to heal 

the system and to use its power and to 

do it with discipline and rigor, not to 

take $870 billion and reward those who 

have had very bad behavior on Wall 

Street. 

I’m sure my dear colleague from 

California and Congressman KUCINICH

from Ohio, who has been such a stalwart in fighting for the people of Cleveland and of our country, would agree 

that the bill they’re sending over from 

the Senate has had no hearings in this 

House. When we sent our bill over 

there, it was about that thick. The bill 

that came back to us today is about 

that thick. It was so heavy I couldn’t 

even carry it over here to the floor. We 

have had not hearing one on that bill 

here in this Chamber. We are not following regular order, and that is not in 

the interest of the American people. At 

a minimum, there ought to be regular 

order with the committees of jurisdiction. 

They’ve stuffed tax issues in that bill 

over on the Senate side. I understand 

there are Exxon Valdez provisions. 

There is even something for wooden arrows for children. There are trade provisions in there, and there is even 

Puerto Rican rum. How about that 

one? They’ve put the Alternative Minimum Tax in there, which sounds great 

except they didn’t have any offsets, so 

it increases the deficit even more. 

We haven’t had hearings, so we’ll 

have to do a better job of due diligence 

here. Really, our leadership should 

allow us to do that. One day or two 

days or five days isn’t going to make 

that much difference in what is happening in the markets. 

Let me give a point of view here as to 

one of the things that, I think, is happening in all of this. Why is the Treasury moving this in this way so fast 

now? 

I think it has to do with the fact that 

so much of our debt has been financed 

by foreigners and by foreign banks that 


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the Treasury is a little bit worried 

about that as we begin a new fiscal 

year and that rather than presenting a 

balanced budget or a budget that 

moves us to a balance over the next 

few years that they’re giving us more 

debt on top of old debt, which is a 

backwards way to help this economy. 

This past week, it was announced in 

Reuters news service that seven banks 

in China had lost over $700 million because of what happened at Lehman 

Brothers with its implosion and that 

the National Bank of China was paying 

attention to that and that the debt 

dealings that they were having with 

the United States, particularly at the 

beginning of the new fiscal year, which 

is October 1, had created a bit of tension in that system and that it is actually our deficit and our difficulty in financing that—because we have a President who conducted two wars without 

paying for them—that our credit situation is not as good as it should be. 

There are instruments, we’ve been 

told, such as credit default swaps and 

collateralized debt obligations that 

have to be covered. Well, let’s be honest with one another. If that’s what 

we’re going to be doing, then let’s tell 

the American people, and let’s get it 

done the right way. We understand, in 

this $870 billion that they want to take 

from the taxpayers, that over half of 

that money will go to foreign creditors. 

Doesn’t this Congress and don’t the 

American people have a right to know 

to whom and how much and what this 

all means and how we got into this situation? Because, if we really don’t understand what we’re getting into, we 

can’t get out of it. If only a few people 

know—and this is an inside trade, inside of Washington—and the American 

people don’t understand it and we don’t 

do this together as a people, then how 

are we really going to make it better 

unless we all walk together and get 

through this together? 

I have a great deal of confidence in 

our banking system, and I would encourage and would hope that Secretary 

Paulson and the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Chairman Bernanke, and 

the head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Chairman Bair, and 

the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Christopher Cox, 

eat lunch tomorrow. I hope you figure 

out how to advise the President of the 

United States because I really do think 

those emergency powers at the FDIC 

would give great confidence to the system. When you do that, you will get an 

inflow of foreign funds into this country rather than the kind of policy 

you’re following now, which is making 

those credit markets tighter and tighter and tighter in a banking system 

that is fundamentally sound and liquid. 

So pay attention to the booking of 

those assets through the Securities and 

Exchange Commission. Help our banks 

weather this period. Give them some 

confidence, and help us to heal this in 

the full sunlight, not in a quick vote 

that is rushed through here tomorrow. 

I want to thank my dear colleague 

from California, BRAD SHERMAN, who 

has been a true, true leader in this effort to try to do this the right way, not 

the fast way. I thank the gentleman. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you. I thank 

the gentlelady from Ohio. 

The only way they can pass this bill 

is by creating and by sustaining a 

panic atmosphere. That atmosphere is 

not justified. Many of us were told in 

private conversations, if we voted 

against this bill, that, on Monday, the 

sky would fall and that the market 

would drop 2,000 or 3,000 points the first 

day and another 2,000 the second day. A 

few Members were even told that there 

would be martial law in America if we 

voted ‘‘no.’’ That’s what I call fear 

mongering—unjustified, proven wrong. 

We’ve got a week; we’ve got 2 weeks 

to write a good bill. The only way to 

pass a bad bill: Keep the panic pressure 

on. 

Now, what has the Senate done to 

this bill? First, they’ve added pork to 

it in the hope that that would buy off 

some votes. Second, they’ve created a 

double hostage situation. Now, we already know that the first bill was a 

hostage situation. When Paulson announced this crisis, he basically sent a 

ransom note, and that ransom note 

read, ‘‘We’ve got your 401(k), and you’ll 

never see it alive again unless you send 

us $700 billion in unmarked bills.’’ So 

we had one hostage situation. 

There’s the AMT patch, a necessary 

tax provision that Congress passes 

every year. Without this patch, the 

AMT tax, which is designed to fall only 

on the wealthy, will hit another 20 million American households. Everyone 

knows we have to pass this. We sent it 

to the Senate for them to pass. Instead 

of passing it, they created a hostage 

situation. They refused to pass it. They 

put it on this bill. So now we’re being 

told, if you don’t send $700 billion to 

Wall Street, we’re going to tax 20 million American families in a way no one 

in Congress wants to do. That’s totally 

phony. If we vote down this bill, the 

Senate will pass the AMT patch bill 

that we sent them just like they do 

every year. 

There has been some attempt to tell 

the American people that this bill isn’t 

going to cost anything permanently because, in 2013, we’re going to get the 

money back from the financial services 

industry. Nothing could be further 

from the truth. All the bill says is that 

the President has to send us a proposal 

to tax the financial services industry. 

Now, keep in mind, if the President has 

any good ideas in 2013, he’ll send them 

to us or she’ll send them to us. If the 

President is only sending us revenue 

ideas because they have to send them 

and they don’t want to send that proposal, well then, they’re going to send 

it with a note, saying, ‘‘I’m required to 

give you this proposal, but I think it’s 

a bad idea.’’ What do you think we’re 

going to do with a Presidential proposal that is disparaged by the President? 

Furthermore, it would be absolutely 

impossible and contrary to the intent 

of the bill, contrary to the logic of the 

bill and contrary to the statutory provisions of the bill to construct a tax 

that hit only those companies that got 

bailed out. Instead, the tax is going to 

hit the entire financial services industry, and a proposal like that is highly 

unlikely to pass the House. If it passed 

the House and if it got over to the Senate, 41 Senators could block it, and 

Wall Street could have enough money 

to hire 4,100 lobbyists. 

Now, why is it that we can’t tax the 

individual companies that are bailed 

out on some sort of proportional basis? 

Well, first, many of those firms 

aren’t going to exist in 2013. Second, 

we’re not even keeping track of how 

much money we lost on the assets 

we’re buying from Goldman Sachs 

versus how much money we’re losing 

on the assets we’re buying from 

Citibank. We’ll know how much we 

bought from each of them, but we 

might buy really toxic assets from one 

and only mildly troublesome assets 

from the other. We’ll mix them together. Then we’ll sell them off and 

we’ll suffer a loss, and we won’t know 

how to attribute that loss. How much 

are we going to tax Goldman Sachs? 

How much are we going to tax 

Citibank? We’ll never know how to tax 

those we’ll have bailed out. 

Some of these companies we’re bailing out are just going to be shell companies, so you know they’re going to 

disappear before 2013, and you know 

that a tax bill is going to hit similarly 

sized banks with the same rate of tax: 

the banks that got a big bailout, the 

banks that got a small bailout, the 

banks that didn’t get a bailout, the 

banks that sold us kind of bad assets, 

the banks that sold us assets that 

turned out to be worthless. 

Such a controversial tax bill submitted under duress by a President is 

not going to pass this House, let alone 

pass the Senate, which can stop it with 

41 votes. Wall Street gets their money 

now, and we get it back: never. 

Now, as I said, hundreds of billions of 

dollars are going to be used to bail out 

foreign investors. That is why my 

amendment, which easily fixes that 

problem, has been rejected, because the 

White House demands that we bail out 

these foreign investors. That’s what 

they want to do. That’s what they 

promised the Saudi royal family. 

That’s what they promised the Bank of 

China. Those promises will be honored 

with the tax money squeezed out of the 

American people. 

They talk about executive compensation being controlled in this bill. They 

do put some controls on some bonuses 

being given to some departing executives—great—but they allow $1-million-a-month salaries. If some executive says, ‘‘well, you know, you wanted 

to pay me a good bonus on top of my 

$1-million-a-month salary and now the 

bonus formula is being changed a little 

bit,’’ the company can say, ‘‘You know, 


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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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