[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 12 (Friday, January 20, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H453-H454]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


 THE PLANNED MEXICAN BAILOUT INVOLVES BACK ROOM DEALS AND BUSINESS AS 
                                 USUAL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Linder). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Oregon [Mr. DeFazio] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, many seem to think that the $40 billion 
bailout of Mexico has gone from the business page to the obituary page. 
If only that were true. We need very much to be on our guard and watch 
out.
  As I speak here on the floor, all across this Capitol and around 
Washington backroom deals are being cut to put American taxpayers on 
the line to bail out investment houses on Wall Street, banks, and other 
speculators that were very lucratively involved in the Mexican market. 
They were getting 20 percent and more interest.
  Don't you think maybe if someone is paying you 20 percent interest or 
25 or 30 percent interest, there is a little bit of risk that flows 
with that investment? Wall Street doesn't think so, nor do other 
speculators. They think the American taxpayers should bail them out.
  Of course, they are not going to give us any of the 20 or 25 percent 
interest that they collected, thank you very much. They want it all.
  Whose money is at risk? Whose money is at risk? A very, very senior 
administration official yesterday, in a closed door meeting of the 
Democratic 
[[Page H454]] Caucus, laughably tried to tell us that it was middle-
income people's money at risk. Their pension funds are invested in 
Mexico, he said.
  Pension funds? Any pension administrator who is investing in junk 
bonds in Mexico--and that is what these things are, junk bonds that pay 
20 to 40 percent interest, from a country that defaulted on all of its 
loans just 12 years ago, no one thinks they are a good risk. Any 
pension administrator who has any substantial amount of money down 
there, there is a cause of action against him by the holders of that 
pension fund. I don't believe that is true.
  If it is true, let's disclose it. We have sent a letter to the 
Secretary of the Treasury asking ``Whose money is at risk here? Who are 
we bailing out?'' There has been no response.
  I don't know that we will ever know who we are bailing out, because 
apparently no hearings will ever be held on this bailout legislation. 
The largest bailout since the savings and loan crisis, and no hearings 
are to be allowed.
  Mr. Speaker, I have heard my Republican colleagues around here 
chortling a little bit because Bill Clinton is so closely identified 
with this issue. At least, although I disagree with him, President 
Clinton has the guts to go out and say he thinks this needs to be done.
  However, remember, the Republicans have an absolute stranglehold on 
both the House and Senate. Any bill that moves through here has to have 
their permission, has to have their votes. It is not a Democratic 
Congress or a Democratic Senate, so they do not want to hold hearings.
  No, they do not want to hold hearings. They do not want to be 
identified with it. They do not want people to really know what is 
going on. They do not want possibly to upset some of those people on 
Wall Street who so handsomely provided for their elections.
  It is business as usual here in Washington, DC, folks, despite all 
the hoopla about the contract, despite all the hoopla about the new 
majority, business as usual, back room deals, $40 billion, U.S. 
taxpayers on the line, and no hearings. That is even worse than the 
worst abuse I can think of of my own party in the last Congress.
  Now we have even drug in the book deal. Today or yesterday the 
chairman of the House Committee on Banking and Financial Services, the 
gentleman from Iowa [Mr. Leach], sent a note to White House Chief of 
Staff Leon Panetta tying Republican support of the Mexican $40 billion 
bailout to the need to get guarantees, guarantees, of kinder treatment 
by Democrats of House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia, so there you 
have it, folks. If you think this isn't business as usual, in fact it 
is even worse than business as usual, a $40 billion bailout, for whom, 
putting the American taxpayers on the line, and the Republican-
controlled Congress is going to refuse to hold a single hearing on 
this, and will try and jam this thing through in the dark of the night 
some night next week or the week after.


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