[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 91 (Tuesday, July 9, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H4402]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         CRISIS ON WALL STREET

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, today President Bush 
went to Wall Street, and he went to Wall Street because he believes 
that Wall Street is now in trouble. It is in trouble with investors, it 
is in trouble with the American people, it is in trouble with the 
international capital communities; and therefore, the President went to 
Wall Street.
  The President today recognized that we have a crisis and a scandal in 
the financial markets in the United States; that, rightfully, 
professional investors, amateur investors, and people who really do not 
even know how to invest but have a stake in Wall Street through their 
pension plans have lost their confidence and are starting to think that 
somebody ought to go to jail.
  This did not happen today, it did not happen yesterday, it did not 
happen last week when the President made up his mind he was going to 
Wall Street. This has been a crisis for the average American for more 
than a year. This has been a crisis since Enron and Tyco and many other 
companies started to falter as their fraudulent bookkeeping schemes 
started to come to light.
  Hundreds of thousands of Americans have had their pensions evaporate 
as companies disguised their financial health and then immediately 
declared bankruptcy. Hundreds of thousands of Americans who thought 
they might be able to retire in the next couple of years now recognize 
that they are going to have to work the rest of their lives if they are 
going to get by. This was a crisis for tens of thousands of employees 
whose jobs evaporated overnight because of the greed of the corporate 
executives who, while they told employees they could not provide 
additional health care dollars, they could not provide extra 
compensation, they could not give to their pensions, were taking 
hundreds of millions of dollars off the top of the corporation.
  This has been a disaster for millions of shareholders across this 
country and in the rest of the world as they lost value in their 
portfolios, some of it for their retirement, some of it for their 
children, some of it for their families, because of the deception, the 
greed, the dishonesty that was rampant on Wall Street these last couple 
of years. Yet it took almost 18 months for George Bush to ask what was 
going on. It took almost 18 months for George Bush to deliver a major 
speech on this crisis.
  The President did not deliver the speech when it was just the 
American family that was in trouble. He did not deliver the speech when 
it was just the workers at Enron or ImClone or Dynergy that were in 
trouble. When we in California tried to tell him that they were 
manipulating the energy market, that they were gouging our consumers, 
that they were gouging the State, that it was all manipulation, they 
told us there was nothing to talk about, that they were comfortable 
that the market would work it all out. There was no market. It was 
manipulation. It was greed. It was dishonesty. It was fraud.
  The same was true when he appointed Harvey Pitt as the chairman of 
the Securities and Exchange Commission, who said that the previous 
chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Mr. Levitt, had 
been too hard on American corporations; when he tried to get honesty 
and transparency in their accounting processes, the industry came to 
Congress and got them to stall out. So Mr. Pitt said he is coming to be 
kinder and gentler to these corporations.
  That is not what we need. We need a watchdog. We do not need a 
lapdog. But Mr. Pitt was appointed to be a lapdog. I do not think Mr. 
Bush can retrain him fast enough to take care of the American investor, 
the American worker, and the American shareholder. Every week now we 
get a new revelation. And the interesting thing is that many of the 
things these corporations were doing may not be against the law.
  Merck was taking money that went to the pharmacists and saying it was 
their revenue. They never saw the money; it never came to them. And 
they are saying this is generally accepted within accounting 
principles. Generally accepted to what? To misstate revenues, to 
misstate earnings? I do not think so. But apparently it is.
  That is why we need what Senator Sarbanes is presenting to the Senate 
right now, a strong, independent review board, and not some industry 
control board that the President has been for, or that Mr. Pitt has 
been for, controlled by industry, making up the rules for industry for 
the good of the industry and not for the American people.
  An investor today in the American stock market, whom are they to 
believe? Are they to read the 10K statements? They apparently have been 
misleading. Are they to read the page that is signed off by the 
accountant? They have been lying to the public. Are they going to go 
talk to the attorneys? They have been misleading the public and the 
boards of directors and others.
  Mr. President, we are glad that you finally recognized this is a 
crisis, but for millions of Americans who have lost their pensions, 
lost their jobs, and lost their savings, this was a crisis a long time 
ago.

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