[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 9 (Thursday, January 15, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H372]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            FORENSIC ACCOUNTING OF WALL STREET BANKS NEEDED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, I am glad I was here on the floor to 
respond to the prior Member who felt compelled to say that he thought 
the Wall Street bailout was working. I would like to know what evidence 
he has to prove that, since we have no forensic accounting of what the 
Wall Street banks that got all this money did with the money. Maybe he 
has some special access inside these institutions and can provide it to 
the Record, because I will tell you what happened yesterday.
  I went before our Rules Committee and I proposed a very simple 
amendment. My amendment was that before we give one more dime of the 
people's money, we require the Treasury to do a forensic accounting of 
every bit of money that was sent up there to Wall Street. And I was 
denied my amendment.
  There is no Member of this Congress that can say with accuracy, 
including the gentleman who just spoke, that he knows where the money 
is, because, you know what? They haven't told us. All you know is what 
you have read in the newspapers, and how can we extend more money from 
the American people when we don't even know what happened to the money 
that went out the door?
  So you can say whatever you want and create a fiction, but the fact 
is that foreclosures are going up across this country. That bill that 
was passed last year was supposed to help people hang onto their homes. 
In Ohio, foreclosures have gotten worse every month.
  What I am telling people right now is, stay in your homes. If the 
American people, anybody out there is being foreclosed, don't leave, 
because I will tell you what. If you had a smart lawyer like those 
banks up there on Wall Street can get, they would take you into court 
and they couldn't find the mortgage. They couldn't find the mortgage.
  So why should any American citizen be kicked out of their homes in 
this cold weather? In Ohio it is going to be 10 or 20 below zero. Don't 
leave your home. Because you know what? When those companies say they 
have your mortgage, unless you have a lawyer that can put his or her 
finger on that mortgage, you don't have that mortgage, and you are 
going to find they can't find the paper up there on Wall Street.
  So I say to the American people, you be squatters in your own homes. 
Don't you leave. In Ohio and Michigan and Indiana and Illinois and all 
these other places our people are being treated like chattel, and this 
Congress is stymied. We have the worst economic crisis since the Great 
Depression and our committees are muzzled. Power is given to one 
chairman or one person.
  We are all equal here. We have a right to be heard. The concerns of 
our constituents have a right to be registered in the committees of 
this House, not choked down as what is happening here today. It is just 
a tragedy. And if we don't fix the economic cure, it is going to get 
worse, and the cure is to go after the home foreclosure crisis.
  Who does that? Treasury? No. That is absolutely the wrong place. We 
need the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the Securities and 
Exchange Commission empowered to do the real estate workouts on books 
across this country. Those are the normal institutions that are used. 
And then you have got HUD there now with FHA that can take these 
mortgages once they are refinanced. But that is not what is happening 
across our country. There is no help for the homeowner. That whole 
section they talked about today, Help for Homeowners over at HUD, 
nobody has even benefited. We said last year they wouldn't, and that is 
exactly what has happened.
  So I say to the American people, stay in your homes. You have earned 
them. And don't you get out until you get a really good lawyer who can 
find your mortgage up there on Wall Street. Because, you know what? 
They won't be able to find it, and therefore they can't prove you 
should be evicted.

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