[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 10 (Wednesday, February 11, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H389-H390]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         NO BAILOUT FOR THE IMF

  (Mr. SANDERS asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this Congress 
voting 1 penny of future funding for the IMF, let alone the $18 billion 
requested unless a number of conditions are met:
  First, the taxpayers of this country should not be forced to bail out 
the large multibillion-dollar banks like Chase Manhattan, Citibank, and 
Bank America, who have made billions of dollars investing in Asia, but 
now that their loans have gone sour, they are running to the United 
States Congress and the taxpayers of this country to be bailed out. 
That is wrong.
  Further, we should not be bailing out people like General Suharto, 
the dictator of Indonesia, whose family is worth $30 billion. The 
taxpayers of this country should not be bailing him out.
  Further, I believe that we need a study to determine how effective 
the IMF has been in developing the global economy. My impression is 
that the middle class of this country is shrinking, unemployment is too 
high in Europe, poverty is increasing in Latin

[[Page H390]]

America, the economy remains dismal in Africa, and now we are seeing an 
economic collapse in Asia. I think we need to question the whole 
concept of the centralized global economy and the role that the IMF is 
playing.

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