[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 15]
[House]
[Page 20187]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




     THE ECONOMIC TRAIN WRECK: IT MATTERS WHO IS IN THE WHITE HOUSE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, it has been a painful experience for all 
of us watching this slow-motion economic train wreck get worse and 
worse.
  One of the lessons over the last dozen years that I have been in 
Congress is that it matters deeply who is in the White House. One can 
just look at the bankruptcy legislation, the so-called ``reform,'' as 
it worked its way through Congress getting actually worse in various 
iterations. When Bill Clinton was no longer there to veto it, it was 
embraced by the Bush administration and enacted into law to the 
detriment of the vast majority of American citizens.
  One looks at how for 13 years when the Fed Chairman refused to use 
the authority to reign in the subprime mortgage madness, the ``froth'' 
that Mr. Greenspan referred to. We went from the firm leadership of the 
Clinton White House Treasury Team of Rubin and Summers to the drift of 
the Bush Treasury with O'Neill and Snow.
  I appreciate the efforts by Speaker Pelosi and Chairman Frank to 
protect the taxpayers, to rein in the people who have driven these 
companies over the edge and our economy into the ditch, to assure that 
they don't profit from any Federal bailout, to stop the golden 
parachutes. This may seem to some to be relatively small potatoes given 
the hundreds of billions of dollars that are being tossed around, but 
it is incredibly important in terms of the signals we are going to send 
to people who are going to behave recklessly in the management of 
corporations. It is critical that we don't rub the nose of the public 
in this failure by rewarding people who have helped create this 
disaster.
  It's important that we take the time to craft this properly, to have 
a shorter leash for the Treasury, particularly because there is such a 
dramatic difference that we are hearing on the campaign trail between a 
Senator McCain, who has repeatedly said that the fundamentals of the 
economy are strong even as he has advocated policies and has been 
counseled by people like Phil Gramm who helped make those fundamentals 
weaker. Senator Obama has appropriately highlighted the problems, 
proposing reasonable solutions, while convening groups of people who 
understand the problem, who have credibility, and the reasonable 
principles and solution.
  Some of the key elements that should be pursued from my perspective 
are, first and foremost, to not put the taxpayer on the hook for any 
more than is absolutely necessary. That sounds simple, but we see 
proposals coming forward that would have us not simply mark to market, 
to just buy the value of the damaged items but things that are going to 
actually accelerate the amount of loss. It is important that we get 
something in return, get back equity. This is not unprecedented. This 
is just what happened a few days ago with insurance giant AIG, and it 
should be a principle that is applied to any other institutions that 
are going to receive Federal assistance.
  It is absolutely critical that we focus on two groups that we need to 
be more sensitive to than the reckless and the greedy: homeowners and 
retirees. It is important to stabilize the middle class housing market 
on which so much of not just our economy but the stability of our 
communities relies. Today's retirees are in danger of paying the 
greatest price of all. Many are already losing what they thought were 
lifetime guarantees of health care and pensions as corporations they 
retired from rewrite the rules. Too many have less saved, they have 
longer lives in retirement, and they are going to be forced to deal 
with more risk than ever before.
  All of this suggests, while I think we are moving in the right 
direction changing some of these proposals, just because the Secretary 
of the Treasury and the Fed Chair made some rash comments about 
urgency, Congress should not rush it; it needs the time to get this 
right.

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