[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 10 (Wednesday, January 18, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H314-H315]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                               TOUGH LOVE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio [Ms. Kaptur] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, first let me say, we heard about NAFTA, you 
hafta. Now it is Mexico, bailout or bust. United States taxpayers 
should not have to become Mexico's insurance company. Why should our 
taxpayers have to place the full faith and credit of our U.S. Treasury 
behind the Wall Street speculators who gambled and lost their own 
money? We have no legal obligation to do that. They are not insured by 
the Treasury of the United States or any of our respective banking 
institutions.
  So today, I would like to ask on the record our U.S. Treasury 
Secretary and Chairman of the Federal Reserve specifically which 
speculators have their hands out to the taxpayers of the United States? 
Which creditors must Mexico pay off in the first quarter of this year, 
in the second, in the third, in the fourth, and in years hence? Which 
investment banks, we want to know who they are and where they are 
located and how much? Which mutual funds, which multinational 
corporations who gambled that the fundamentals of that system of 
government in Mexico were good enough for them to take our jobs south 
of the border? And which global banks? Who specifically does Mexico owe 
the $26 billion that is coming due this year, and then the dozens and 
dozens of billions, $89 billion total public debt, not counting the 
private debt, and all the creditors that Mexico owes?
  Call my approach tough love. There are just some times when you have 
to say ``no.''
  Imagine, we have a U.S. Treasury Department which recently, under the 
GATT debate, told our savings bondholders in this country that they 
could not earn 4 percent interest anymore on their U.S. savings bonds. 
You remember a couple years ago they could earn 6 percent; then they 
lowered it to 4 percent. Then under GATT, they removed the floor 
completely. So American taxpayers who buy U.S. savings bonds have no 
real incentives to buy them anymore.

                              {time}  1350

  Then the Federal Reserve Chairman testified here in Washington last 
week that in order to try to balance our budget, gosh, maybe senior 
citizens in our country would have to take a $10 a month reduction in 
their cost-of-living allowance under their Social Security. That is not 
exactly what I had in mind for the seniors in my district, but the very 
same organizations, the U.S. Treasury, which cut the interest rates to 
our bond buyers, and the Federal Reserve, which has told our seniors, 
``Sorry, you are getting too much money,'' now they have pledged the 
full faith and credit of this Government to another nation. I find it 
very interesting.
  What is so reprehensible to me is when I first got here in Congress 
in the 1980's, I came here because of the high unemployment in my 
district. I was appointed to the Committee on Banking, Finance and 
Urban Affairs.
  The very first bill that I came up with on that committee was to try 
to find a way to help the people in my district to hold onto their 
homes. We had a bill that would have prevented foreclosure.
  We had a bill that said, ``Look, we will create a
   second mortgage, and for those of you where the bankers are at your 
door, the creditors are at your door, we will give you a second 
mortgage. It will be short term. After a year you will have your job 
back and you will be able to stay in your house and continue to earn 
money at your job.''

  They have a good credit history. We were only asking for a short-term 
add-on to their mortgage. It was guaranteed by the collateral of the 
house itself. They had to pay it back, and the political situation in 
Toledo, OH, is pretty stable.
  Guess what, we could not get that bill through the Committee on 
Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs of this Congress. We couldn't help 
our own people with any kind of guarantee to hold on to their own 
homes.
  Yet, now, another nation comes and is in trouble, and we are willing 
to pledge $40 billion in loan guarantees plus $18 billion. They already 
have the lines open to Mexico as of last week. I would find the whole 
situation absolutely amazing if it weren't so upsetting, because it 
just goes to prove that those that have a lot have incredible political 
power in this city and around the world.
  I have never seen the kind of people running around here to help my 
district when it was in recession that I have now seen running around 
this Congress and up and down Pennsylvania Avenue to try to bail out 
the Wall 
[[Page H315]] Street speculators who would not listen to us when we 
debated NAFTA last year. We tried to get provisions in there to protect 
our people, as well as to have a slower market opening mechanism so we 
would not have these kinds of dysfunctions as NAFTA kicked in. They 
wouldn't listen to us then. They have made billions already. We 
shouldn't pledge the full faith and credit of the taxpayers of our 
country.

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