[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 18]
[House]
[Page 25794]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1900
       AMERICA'S HERITAGE IS AT RISK AS OUR NATION LOSES ITS WAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, when our Nation was founded, its spirit of 
independence and liberty permeated its creation. Freedom, independence, 
and liberty are the core of the American spirit. But I fear that our 
priceless heritage is at risk as our Nation loses its way. We are $10 
trillion in debt, dependent more and more on foreign borrowing every 
day to conduct wars not being paid for. We are energy dependent, not 
independent. We are dependent on foreign petroleum, 75 percent of which 
we import from foreign countries across the rest of the world. Most of 
those places are undemocratic regimes. We are dependent on that 
petroleum. We are dependent on importing capital because we are $10 
trillion in debt. Now we have the highest home foreclosure rate since 
the Great Depression.
  The State that I represent, Ohio, which has lost so many jobs through 
outsourcing to foreign countries, is hard hit, as is our sister State 
north of us, the State of Michigan. Why? These are all the result of 
Wall Street draining people's accumulated equity from their largest 
form of savings, their home. When you have that amount of debt, you 
have to monetize it. You have to cover the gap. So what do you do? You 
send letters to the American people. The big banks are saying, ``Do you 
want to borrow against your home equity? Do you want to borrow $20,000 
or $30,000 or $40,000?'' That happened across our country, and now many 
people are living in homes where they owe more on their mortgage than 
the basic value of the home itself.
  We are losing our independence. Families are losing their 
independence. In turn, the Nation is losing its independence. At some 
point, you might say, the chickens of profligacy have come home to 
roost.
  We witness parts of our Nation being pawned off every day. We see 
turnpikes that the States used to own and run being rented out to 
foreign countries for 99 years, and then the taxpayers of those States 
having to pay for them again with interest over 99 years. And the debt 
never ends.
  The latest fire sale, as was reported in the New York Times 
yesterday, is NASDAQ, one of the pillars of our stock market. The New 
York Times reported that an undemocratic country, the United Arab 
Emirates, which is a Middle Eastern fiefdom, intends to buy one-third 
of the NASDAQ. That is incredible.
  Let me ask, why would we sell any part of the heart of our economy to 
a foreign government or any undemocratic interest? Why we would do 
this, unless we were broke. And we are broke. We are only holding it 
together with borrowing. If our government tried to buy one-third of 
the NASDAQ, I could just hear the voices in here saying, ``socialism, 
socialism.'' It wouldn't be allowed. We would stop it. Why would we 
allow any foreign government or any foreign interest to purchase one-
third of one of our pillars of capitalism in this country? The United 
Arab Emirates is notorious for human trafficking, for money laundering, 
including from terrorist networks. And we are going to allow them to 
buy one-third of the NASDAQ?
  The United Arab Emirates is a hub in the Middle East for 
recirculating petrodollars that are taken out of our pockets because we 
are energy dependent here at home rather than energy independent. Those 
countries have amassed billions and billions and billions of dollars to 
fuel their undemocratic oil dictatorships. The UAE has no democratic 
government, no democratically elected government. Its citizens have no 
right to freely change their government. We have laws that tell us how 
often we have to change our Government. There is no freedom of 
representation in the United Arab Emirates. Why would we allow them to 
buy one-third of our stock market?
  Mr. Speaker, I intend to introduce legislation to block this latest 
sellout of America.

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