[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 183 (Thursday, December 1, 2011)]
[House]
[Pages H8009-H8010]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             EUROPE BAILOUT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Indiana (Mr. Burton) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BURTON. Mr. Speaker, no nation, no economy can survive without 
fiscal discipline. Printing more money is never the answer. Bailout 
funds have already been granted to Greece, Ireland, and Portugal; and 
the European crisis has gotten worse, not better.
  And here in the United States, the Obama administration has cranked 
up the printing presses first through their $800 billion stimulus 
boondoggle and then through the Federal Reserve's Quantitative Easing 
Program. And what did it produce? Nine percent unemployment and a $1 
trillion-plus budget deficit for the last 3 years, and we have $15 
trillion in debt.
  I want to read from a couple of articles that were in the paper 
yesterday.
  The first one from The Wall Street Journal, and it's entitled ``Blame 
It on Berlin.'' It says: ``Berlin's alleged sin is its reluctance to 
write a blank check to save the euro--either by underwriting a new euro 
zone fiscal union, or by granting permission for the European Central 
Bank to buy trillions of dollars in sovereign debt.'' And they'd have 
to print money to do that.

[[Page H8010]]

  ``The chant comes in unison from the debtor nations themselves, the 
bailout caucus in Brussels. An Obama White House concerned with its re-
election and liberal pundits worried about their welfare-state economic 
model is under assault. Like the `rich' American who must pay their 
`fair share,' the Germans are supposed to pay up to save a united 
Europe.
  ``The reality is that the Germans, along with the Dutch and the 
Finns, are the rare Europeans who understand that saving the euro 
requires more than a blank check. It requires a new political 
commitment to better economic policy to fiscal discipline.''
  Now let me read from another article that was in the paper. I think 
it was this morning in this Washington Post. I will read it in part. It 
says: ``Investors have grown wary of lending money to European banks.'' 
People who invest, they don't want to invest in European banks because 
they're worried that their firms could lose vast amounts of money in 
their holdings of bonds issued by cash or European governments. So 
investors don't want to invest, and Germany does not want to invest.''
  So what happened? ``The world's most powerful central banks, 
including the United States,'' our Fed, ``are stepping in and using 
unlimited ability to print money and to lend it across national borders 
to try to arrest that dangerous cycle. The central banks are using what 
are called `swap lines' to exchange their respective currencies.''
  And then it goes on in the article and says: ``The swap lines pose 
little risk to the U.S. taxpayers. Fed officials have said, because''--
it says little risk, they didn't say no risk, little risk--``the swap 
lines pose little risk to the U.S. taxpayers'' Federal officials have 
said because ``the Fed is doing business with foreign central banks 
viewed as trustworthy. Those foreign central banks, in turn, take the 
risk of loss if the banks they're lending to go under.'' But it goes 
right up the line. If they can't make it, then they go back to the 
original lender, which would be the United States Fed.
  Why are the Germans so reluctant to invest? Because they've been 
through hyperinflation. They know what it's like to have the EU Central 
Bank printing money because they remember under the Weimar Republic 
after World War I people took baskets of money to go buy a loaf of 
bread. And why are the investors reluctant? Because they don't want to 
lose their money. They're afraid that they'll lose their investors' 
money and they might go out of business.
  So what happens? The United States comes to the rescue by bailing out 
the central banks in Europe by saying that we're going to have a swap 
line with you and our currency will guarantee your currency, and we'll 
charge you almost no interest to do that. This is an exercise in 
futility. That is not the answer.
  We should not risk the American taxpayer by giving money or lending 
money to Europe under these circumstances. It's crazy, in my opinion.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope that the President and the Fed will reconsider 
this and not put us into the basket with the Europeans under these 
circumstances right now. It makes absolutely no sense, and it risks the 
American taxpayer.

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