[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 20 (Wednesday, February 1, 1995)]
[House]
[Page H977]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 FALLOUT FROM INCREASED INTEREST RATES

  (Mr. DeFAZIO asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Mr. Speaker, a new Federal policy brokered in secret, 
adopted without a single hearing, a single open public meeting and no 
vote.
  A policy that will:
  Increase this year's deficit by $2.5 billion?
  Increase the cost of a mortgage on a $100,000 house by more than $500 
a year--that makes a mockery of the puny income tax cuts we are talking 
about here.
  Drive up the cost of everything bought on credit--from automobiles to 
winter clothes for the kids.
  This is a policy specifically intended to drive up the rate of 
unemployment toward a target of 6 percent--that means 3\1/2\ million 
more Americans out of work than under the old target of 4 percent.
  Is this a new abuse heaped upon the American people by an insulated 
and arrogant Congress? No, this policy will be foisted on the American 
public by the secretive, arrogant, and insulated Federal Reserve Board, 
a small group of powerful bankers and economists who believe their 
control over our money supply is to be used to serve their friends and 
masters from Wall Street, not Main Street America.
  Mr. Speaker, it is time to stop Alan Greenspan and his cronies before 
they kill the economy again.

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