[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 46 (Tuesday, March 17, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H3477]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                OUTRAGED

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Forbes) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FORBES. Mr. Speaker, I found it almost comical today, as I 
watched both on the floor and from my office, as one Member after the 
other has come to these podiums all across this Chamber, and they 
pounded on their desk, and they have screamed and they have all used 
the same word, ``outraged.''
  They are outraged over the $165 million in bonuses that AIG has paid 
and the $90 million that AIG has paid to European banks and Wall Street 
investment firms. But I am outraged about something different. I am 
outraged that they are outraged, and the reason is because I am only 
one of 17 Members out of 435 Members who voted ``no'' on every single 
one of these so-called stimulus and bailout packages, for one reason: 
we didn't think it would work.
  Mr. Speaker, as we were trying to raise our hands and just ask 
intelligent questions about them, we were finding that people were 
ignoring the rules and they were rushing them through, that there was a 
whole set of people out there screaming and yelling, if you just didn't 
pass this bill in this form, the sky was going to fall and the world 
was going to come to an end, and they pushed these bills through 
without legislative analysis. While we were trying to just tell people 
what was going on and simply ask the question nobody wanted to hear, 
they just wanted to pass the bills.
  Mr. Speaker, I have a suggestion: just read the bills. If we had read 
those bills, we would know what most of the analysts are telling us 
now, and that is that it would take 100,000 to 250,000 government 
bureaucrats just to monitor where this money is going and how it's 
going to be spent.
  And instead of coming to the podium and pounding it and saying how 
outraged they are, wouldn't it be novel if they came and just said ``we 
are wrong. We admit we are wrong. We are not going to make those 
mistakes again.''
  But, Mr. Speaker, coming here and saying you are outraged is not some 
kind of get out of political hot water free card. In fact, it's like a 
sitcom. Imagine this situation: a husband goes out in this economic 
situation, buys an expensive new boat.
  A few weeks later, the bill comes in the mail, and his wife opens it 
up. And she is steaming and seething and looking at how they are going 
to pay this payment.
  And he walks in, and he looks at her, and she throws it across the 
table. And he picks up the bill, and he looks at it, realizes he can't 
make those payments, looks at her steaming and mad, and all of a sudden 
he pounds the table and he says, ``Honey, I am outraged over this bill 
that I am having to pay.'' And that's where Congress is finding itself 
today.
  Mr. Speaker, we wouldn't run our businesses that way. Only the 
government and AIG run theirs that way. We have a lot of people calling 
our offices and saying ``What can I do?''
  Well, here's what you can do. Go find out how people voted and then 
call them up and ask them why.
  The second thing we can do is make sure we are going to stop this 
bailout madness and then simply do this. Before we take more options 
away from our children and grandchildren by mortgaging their future, 
let's simply ask these four questions: Where is the money actually 
going? How do we know it's going to get there? Will it work once it 
arrives? And how will we pay it back?

                              {time}  1615

  Mr. Speaker, I would submit that perhaps if we do that, next time 
there will be more than 17 of us justified and actually coming to the 
podium, beating on it, and saying we are outraged.

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