[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 157 (Monday, September 29, 2008)]
[House]
[Page H10634]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          DON'T PANIC AMERICA

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, this was a historic day. There was a bill 
in which we had Members who meant well, who had come to this floor and 
said, look, I understand we all have these principles, and this 
violates some of our principles, but we need to set those aside in 
order to avoid risk here. Well, first of all, that is a faulty premise. 
I just couldn't think of anything but the Declaration of Independence, 
when the people who founded this place came forward and said the 
principles of not having the king, not having the Government run 
everything are too important. And they signed their name where 
everybody could see, pledging their lives, their fortunes, their sacred 
honor, saying, ``On these principles we will stand or fall.''
  And I think today the House, by its vote, said we're standing on the 
same principles. But not only that, these are the principles on which 
this Nation has become the greatest Nation in the world and the most 
prosperous. We can't abandon those principles.
  So to have a bill that would come before Congress that basically gave 
the Secretary of the Treasury incredible powers--he was going to be 
able to bail out any bank in the world with American taxpayer dollars, 
the only exception was a central bank of a foreign government, but 
other banks that weren't central banks of other governments could be 
bailed out. And then, looking at judicial review, as that's my 
background, it was extraordinary. Nobody was going to be able to object 
legally and have a chance of prevailing under the standards that were 
set forth.
  So the American people need to hear this message: Don't panic. You 
saw a Congress bipartisanly come in here and stand on principle and 
want you to know, don't panic, we are going to address this. We're 
going to come back, it will take a couple of days, and we'll look at 
the other solutions. One of them was proposed by the former Chairman of 
the FDIC and said, look, Paulson wanted $700 billion of American 
taxpayer money to buy these mortgage-based securities that, because the 
market is frozen, they have no value. And he is going to put a value on 
there, and it would be either the value, if you do a discounting based 
on the cash payments made on that mortgage, how regularly they're made, 
there's a way to get a formula and put a value on there, or you can 
base it on a discounted value of the underlying property that is 
securing that mortgage.
  And then you have a value. And that's what Secretary Paulson was 
going to come in and spend to buy these assets with American taxpayer 
dollars. The FDIC former Chairman said, look, if you will just allow 
these banks to value these assets, what they're really worth and what 
Secretary Paulson was willing to come in and pay, then they're not 
under water, the banks don't fail. Washington Mutual didn't have to 
fail. And even when it failed, all those people that had money with 
Washington Mutual, they woke up the next day, they had the same money 
in the account, it is now under a JP Morgan name. And the same way with 
Wachovia; all their deposits, as I understand it, they have been 
purchased, and the people can wake up tomorrow and know they've got all 
that money, it's just under a different name, in the same amount.
  Don't panic. When Roosevelt said, ``All we have to fear is fear 
itself,'' that is so true right now because this Congress is committed 
to principle in a bipartisan way. And I appreciate my friend, Ms. 
Kaptur, and her diligence in pursuing this. And we've heard some of the 
same presentations. And we're going to come back with a better bill; 
and if we don't, we're going to keep doing it until we get it right.
  Some of the other proposals were excellent. You know, rather than 
make American taxpayers buy these things--including in, possibly, 
foreign countries--why not just say, look, if you will come and buy 
these assets, you won't have any capital gains on the income you make 
off of these, that encourages the free market to flow.
  We have heard--I was not aware--that there may be hundreds of 
billions of American dollars in foreign banks. And one idea was, if you 
say we will allow you to repatriate those hundreds of billions of 
dollars if you will bring them in, no tax, no penalty, and buy these 
assets to help things along, that brings America money.
  There are all kinds of fantastic ideas. And we are going to be 
stronger in America if the fearmongering will go away so Americans can 
use their own judgment and understand that this was a good thing today. 
Please don't fear, please don't panic. We're going to come back from 
this stronger, with our principles intact.

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