[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 68 (Tuesday, May 5, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H5106]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  LOOK INTO CAUSES OF ECONOMIC MORASS

  (Mr. COHEN asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, as Congresswoman Watson was saying, we will 
vote this week on the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act. That act will 
do several things, one of which will set up a commission to look into 
the causes of the economic morass that we are presently experiencing.
  Congress did that in the Great Depression, and it led to the reforms 
that kept this country safe for a long time. Then we fell to the 
arguments that were made, starting with the Reagan administration, 
about the free market and the free market which took us where we are 
today.
  The free market, unfettered, has caused this problem. But a study 
needs to be taken by the Congress, and that's what that bill would do.
  It would also expand the abilities of several State governments and 
nonprofits to look into fraud and extend Federal fraud statutes to the 
TARP and to the Recovery and Reinvestment Act. People who fraudulently 
steal from the government or steal these funds are engaging in as un-
American an activity as anybody could do short of espionage.
  I endorse the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act and hope that we 
could have a commission to get to the bottom of what's happened. This 
past week, Mr. Speaker, I watched ``Wall Street,'' the movie. It's 
shameful and it's today's world.

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