[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 53 (Wednesday, April 27, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H2631]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        PRACTICE WHAT YOU PREACH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, we passed the bankruptcy bill out of here 
the other day and I voted ``no,'' and I will show you what I got for my 
reward. I got two more credit cards in the mail the very same day I 
voted ``no.''
  The credit card industry in this country is demonstrating what is 
anti-Christian about this body. A lot of people stand around and tell 
us, oh, we believe in the Judeo-Christian religion and that is the root 
of all our efforts and everything else. Well, let me tell you 
something: The Israelites went down into Egypt and they were slaves. 
God said, look, I am going to take you out of Egypt, I will put you in 
the promised land but you have got to develop a community where nobody 
is enslaved.
  Now, that took us to several different points in the presentation. 
The first was the idea of the Sabbath. On the Sabbath day, everybody 
was supposed to rest; slave, worker, wife, husband, animals, everybody 
rested on the seventh day.
  The second concept was of the Sabbath year. And here is what the 
Sabbath year was. And I read this, this is from Deuteronomy 15. If you 
do not know, that is the fifth book in the Jewish Bible and it is also 
the fifth book in the Christian Bible.
  ``Every seventh year you shall grant a remission of debts. And this 
is the manner of the remission: Every creditor shall remit the claim 
that is held against a neighbor, not exacting it of a neighbor who is a 
member of the community, because the Lord's remission has been 
proclaimed. When the Lord, your God, has blessed you as he has promised 
you, you will lend to other nations but you will not borrow.''
  How do we explain $450 billion of borrowing?
  ``You will rule over other nations but they will not rule over you.'' 
And it goes on. ``If there is among you anyone in need, a member of 
your community in any of our towns within the land that the Lord, your 
God, is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted towards your 
needy neighbor. You should open your hand, willingly lend enough to 
meet the need, whatever it may be. Be careful you do not entertain a 
mean thought, thinking the seventh year, the year of remission is near, 
and therefore view your needy neighbor with hostility and give nothing. 
Your neighbor might cry to the Lord against you and you will incur 
guilt. Give liberally but be ungrudging when you do so, for on this 
account the Lord, your God, will bless you and all your work and all 
that you undertake.
  ``Since there will never cease to be some in need on the Earth, I 
therefore command you, open your hand to the poor and the needy 
neighbor in your land.''
  Now we have stood out here and passed a bill that is in exact 
contradiction. This same idea goes right into the Christian faith. This 
is not a Jewish idea. It is not a Christian idea. It is the Judeo-
Christian ethic under which we live.
  The bankruptcy bill says, if you have taken more money and borrowed 
more money than you can pay off, we are going to get you. We are going 
to squeeze the last dime out of you.
  In that bill that passed here the other day, we changed a basic 
principle in our bankruptcy law in this country; that if you are in 
bankruptcy the first draw on any money available is the wife and the 
children. Child support. That should be the first money that goes out 
to be paid. If there is nothing else left, that should be first.
  What this bill said was, these credit card companies who are out 
there sending these cards out all over this country with absolutely no 
regulation whatsoever, they are hooking people and then we are going to 
squeeze the last dime. We will put the poor woman and her kids in 
court, arguing with attorneys from the credit card company about 
whether or not they are going to get any money. So the poor woman and 
the kids are going to spend their food money on a lawyer to fight these 
people. No protection whatsoever.
  That is not what the book of Deuteronomy said. That is not what God 
commended us to do. Whether we are Christian or Arab or Muslim or 
whatever, that bill was an abomination. We ought to start paying 
attention to the base of the values that we say we submit to in this 
House.

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