[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 151 (Tuesday, September 23, 2008)]
[House]
[Page H8587]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              AMERICA HAS DEFAULTED ON ITS PROMISSORY NOTE

  (Mr. JACKSON of Illinois asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, in 1963, Martin Luther King, 
Jr., said, ``In a sense we have come to our Nation's capital to cash a 
check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words 
of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were 
signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. 
This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the 
unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
  ``It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory 
note. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given us 
a bad check, and it has come back marked insufficient funds.''
  Dr. King went on to say, ``As a nation, we can spend billions of 
dollars to put a man on the Moon and a war in Vietnam, but we can't put 
a man on his own two feet right here in America.''
  Last week this Congress could not provide money for community health 
care centers. They couldn't find money for day-care programs, for 
community policing, for crumbling schools, but this week we found $700 
billion to bail out incompetence on Wall Street. For months, President 
Bush has refused to sign appropriations bills that exceeded his budget 
request. This week he wants the Treasury, with bipartisan support of 
the Congress, to give him maybe up to $1 trillion.
  Stop defaulting on the American Dream. Stop issuing promissory notes.
  Mr. Speaker, I too have a dream: Let's bail out homeowners and Main 
Street before Wall Street.

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