[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 15]
[Senate]
[Pages 20743-20747]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        CONGRESSIONAL OVERSIGHT

  Mr. COBURN. Mr. President, I wish to spend a few minutes talking 
about a perspective that I think is lacking, and I hope we have an 
opportunity to gain. I was intrigued and interested as I listened to 
the senior Senator from New Hampshire explain to the American people 
what actually is going on in terms of our financial system. I don't 
believe there is anybody in the Congress, or anybody in the country, 
who is happy about where we are today: contemplating putting the 
Federal Government as the owner of a bunch of toxic assets that were 
accumulated on the basis of greed, poor policy, bad management, and bad 
regulation. I don't believe anybody is happy we are here. I don't 
believe the regulators are; I don't think Members of Congress are; I 
don't think people in this country are.
  But from that, we can learn something. My worry is that we will not. 
I heard this morning the majority leader--and I have a great deal of 
respect for him--laying this all at the foot of President Bush. 
Presidents can do very little other than what we let them do. When we 
talk about the lack of oversight and regulation, the problem is, we 
were not watching the regulators, and our constitutional duty is that 
we should have been.
  There is a lot of blame to go around--and it is not partisan--
Republicans and Democrats, the executive branch, even the judicial 
branch in some of their rulings that created some stupid consequences 
to things that were never intended by Congress.
  But what we ought to learn, and what I think is most important is, if 
you are an American right now and you are worried, you have a great 
reason to be worried. It is not about some impending financial crash. 
What you should be worried about is the Congress is not listening.
  Let me explain what I mean.
  We are going to finish at the end of this year with over $10 trillion 
in debt. That is over $33,000 for every man, woman, and child. We are 
about to pass some type of system to salvage credit liquidity in this 
country that is going to cost another $2,000 to $3,000 per man, woman, 
and child in this country.
  We are going to have a continuing resolution that comes to this body 
this evening or maybe tomorrow morning that continues to do the wrong 
things that got us into the mess in the first place.
  The financial mess we are in is because confidence in the country and 
our response has been eroded. As I got on a plane to come back to 
Washington, I talked with a businessman from eastern Oklahoma who has a 
worldwide business. He talked about on August 20, he saw this 
tremendous worldwide drop in demand for his product. It didn't have 
anything to do with his product. It had everything to do with people 
now worried about if they should hang on to cash because the economics 
don't look good.
  Whatever they do here, the No. 1 goal has to be reestablishing a 
confidence in this country that, yes, we can have an economy that 
works, we can rebuild faith in the financial institutions, and we can 
do that, best of all, by not repeating the mistakes we have made in the 
past.
  To outline, the Defense appropriations bill has over $10 billion in 
it for airplanes the Air Force doesn't want. Think about that. There is 
$10 billion worth of airplanes in the Defense appropriations bill that 
is going to pass that they are going to have to buy that they neither 
want nor need. Why is that happening? Because we are putting local, 
parochial politics ahead of the best interests of the country.
  We are going to buy some ships the Navy doesn't want. Same reason, 
different area of the country. But we are going to buy them because we 
are going to put a parochial benefit to a Member of Congress ahead of 
the best interests of the country.
  There isn't a family out there who doesn't have to weekly or monthly 
make hard choices about how they spend their money. We, unfortunately, 
continue to make decisions on how we spend your children's money and 
your grandchildren's money on a parochial or political interest that 
benefits Members of Congress. That is what has to change.
  If there is a lesson in what has happened to us in terms of the loss 
of confidence in the financial system in this country, all I have to 
say is Congress earned it. We created it. We expend 100 times more 
effort trying to create new programs and new ways of spending than we 
do managing the very Government you send us here to put under control.
  I take the Constitution literally. It has a section in it called the 
enumerated powers. It is article II, section 8. It spells out exactly 
what the role of Congress is. If you look at how we got into this mess, 
every example of that goes back to the fact that Congress is violating 
what the Constitution says is our legitimate role, is doing something 
that is outside the legitimate role, and we rationalized it for the 
political benefits for either career politicians or party, one side of 
the aisle or the other. That is why Congress has a 9-percent approval 
rating, because we are more interested in us than we are the best 
interests of the country. And it shows.
  We have the financial debacle in front of us today to prove it. 
Imagine what would have happened had Congress been aggressive in its 
oversight. Imagine what would have happened after the failed attempt 4 
years ago to try to put the controls of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that 
we had a monthly hearing outlining the worsening--worsening--condition 
so we could have avoided this situation. Instead of us doing that, we 
did what was easy. We took the easy road, the wide road. We didn't do 
what our oath calls us to do.
  I think we are going to see some very different behavior when it 
comes to us approaching the financial package that we are going to put 
together that will enable an economic recovery in this country. I 
believe you are going to see people vote for bills they basically don't 
like because it is in the best interest of the country. My hope is that 
when we do that, it would not be a one-time happening; that we will, in 
fact, move back to the position to take a decision on how we vote on 
something and not do a finger to the wind on how it looks back home or 
how it looks for our political career but, in fact, look at the U.S. 
Constitution and say: Does it square with that, and does it match our 
oath to do what is in the best interest of the country? When we get 
through with this exercise, as far as this economic recovery, I think 
the country can once again maybe start to have confidence in Congress; 
that we will, in fact, address the issue; that we will vote against our 
political best interests, but we will vote in the best interests of the 
American people.
  Senator Gregg has outlined very eloquently what is happening, what 
has happened, what the response has been thus far, and what needs to be 
done in the future. If you have not heard him speak to this, I would 
suggest my colleagues listen to him. You can get it, what he spoke 
about this morning, before lunch, an understanding of what is necessary 
to reestablish confidence. It is not a time for politicians to win, it 
is a time for the American people to win. The only way they win is when 
we put them first and us second.
  Mr. GREGG. Will the Senator yield for a question?
  Mr. COBURN. I will.

[[Page 20744]]


  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that at the 
conclusion of the time the Senator from Oklahoma has used, I be 
recognized for 10 minutes under morning business; and at the conclusion 
of my time, Senator Alexander be recognized; and if a Democratic Member 
wishes to speak, that they be inserted in the proper order.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, I wish to congratulate the Senator from 
Oklahoma. He has made an extraordinarily statesmanlike presentation. 
This isn't about the politics of the day, it isn't about theater or 
hyperbole. This is about how we maintain the integrity of the American 
financial system so we have the necessary tools to make Main Street 
solvent and prosperous so Americans don't lose their jobs, don't lose 
their savings, and we have economic activity that continues. He has 
stood and--in the face of what is some fairly intense criticism coming 
from pundits who don't have a vested interest in the issue, other than 
their desire to get ratings--made the very rational point that we need 
to do this, we need to take action, we need to step outside the bounds 
of politics, outside the bounds of theater, and we need to do it now; 
that delaying this only will lead to significant problems.
  So, first, I wish to say I have unlimited praise for the position the 
Senator has taken, and he has not only done this in this Chamber but he 
has done it in meetings with membership, and it has had a huge impact 
on my colleagues because he is so highly regarded on the issue of 
fiscal policy especially. But I guess my question is: We have Senator 
McCain basically suspending his campaign to come back and try to work 
on this, and Senator Obama has been very constructive. It is time to 
move forward in a bipartisan way. Doesn't the Senator from Oklahoma 
believe this has to be done in a bipartisan way and done in a very 
timely way; otherwise, we will lose the opportunity to settle this 
situation out, and we may see a disastrous event occurring which 
affects every American's pocketbook and their lifestyle, basically?
  Mr. COBURN. First of all, I thank the Senator for his comments, and 
to answer him: What we saw on the market today, we saw a period of time 
when there was zero interest on a 2-month T-bill. What that is saying 
is people have lost interest on anything other than a government 
security, and they are willing to give the Government their money for 
that security with no interest. That is fear talking. What we have to 
do is drive out fear. We have to drive back confidence.
  So I believe, Senator Gregg, that we will see a bipartisan vote in 
the Senate and the sooner the better. Because every day we are not 
fixing this, it is costing jobs, it is costing the ability to promote 
new jobs in our economy, and it is costing savings for those people who 
are no longer working but living off retirement. So I feel this body is 
going to stand and do the right thing.
  I have been impressed with Senator Schumer, Senator Jack Reed, whom I 
just saw. The questions he asked and the answers that were put forth by 
both Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke yesterday, I thought, were 
right on the money. I don't think we are far apart. But even if we are 
not far apart, we have to be able to do what is right and we have to do 
it timely. We should not leave here. There should be no leaving and 
coming back until this is solved.
  Our future depends on what we do and how fast we do it. That doesn't 
mean we should not do it right. It doesn't mean we shouldn't be 
thoughtful about what we do. But the degree and the magnitude of this 
problem is something I have never seen in my 60 years, and I doubt the 
Senator from New Hampshire has ever seen it. Very few people in the 
history of the world have ever seen the kind of risk this country is 
facing at this moment.
  So it is important it have nothing to do with Republicans or 
Democrats; that it have nothing to do with the Presidential election; 
that it have nothing to do with anything except the best interest and 
the future of this country.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Hampshire.
  Mr. GREGG. Well, Mr. President, I wish to continue the dialogue the 
Senator from Oklahoma has begun because I believe it is critical.
  There are times when our Nation faces a crisis of incomprehensible 
threat--incomprehensible in terms of the size and the effect of it--and 
at those times we have united as a nation. This is a time when we have 
to do that. Most of those threats have been physical events, the most 
recent being Katrina and, obviously, 9/11, and the attack on Pearl 
Harbor. These were physical events that caused us as a nation to pull 
together and act in an extraordinary way and as a government to do the 
same. What we are facing is an event that will create a massive 
disruption of our economy and will have a huge impact on individuals. 
That is the point. People will be unable to get credit.
  If you run a small mom-and-pop grocery store or a small business, and 
this month or this week you don't make enough money to meet payroll, 
you are not going to be able to borrow money to meet payroll, so people 
will not be paid. If you have a child in college and you want to borrow 
to keep them going in college, you are not going to be able to borrow 
that money. If you have a house you want to refinance or add on to, you 
probably would not be able to borrow to do that. The credit markets are 
locked down and will lock up if we don't take some action to try to 
relieve this pressure.
  The important point is this action is not that expensive in the 
context of the overall threat. The number $700 billion has been thrown 
around. That is a totally specious number. Yes, that is what will be 
borrowed, but it is not what it will cost us, because that money will 
be used to purchase assets, and those assets have value and the 
Government and the taxpayers will recover that value. The net effect of 
that borrowing and the assets purchased, when they are resold, could be 
zero, we could actually make money, or it may be $100 billion, which is 
a lot of money, but it is certainly not $700 billion.
  So in the context of what the initial cost will be, it will hardly be 
anything on the deficit in the next year. It may be significant on the 
debt but not on the deficit. The practical effect of that in the long 
run will be that it would not be anything on the debt because the money 
will be repaid through the selling of the assets that are purchased. 
Compare that cost to what happens if we do nothing--if we have a total 
destabilization of our financial houses, if banks start to fail, if 
Main Street contracts, if people are put out of work, if revenues drop 
dramatically. You are talking about lost revenues to the Federal 
Government of an inordinate amount. You are talking about programs 
which will have to be added to take care of people in dire straits of 
inordinate amounts. I can't imagine what the cost would be if we went 
through a dire recession or worse. But it would be huge--huge--and 
dramatically more, by factors of multiples, multiple events compared to 
what the cost is of trying to do something now.
  The point is we have to do it quickly. This is understood, by the 
way, by a lot of people around here. It is understood, fortunately, by 
Senator McCain, who has said he is going to suspend his campaign to 
come back and try to get this thing done. I believe it is understood by 
Senator Obama. I have been totally impressed with his very mature and 
appropriate response to this issue. I am hoping Senators McCain and 
Obama can lead us, in a bipartisan way, to resolve this. I have also 
been impressed with the leadership on the other side of the aisle, 
especially the role taken on by Senator Schumer, who obviously 
understands this intuitively and substantively, being from New York, 
But also other Members on the other side of the aisle. I think Senator 
Dodd, chairman of the Banking Committee has played a major role. 
Obviously, he was extremely critical, he and Senator Shelby, in the 
initial effort with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Their work was 
extraordinary.

[[Page 20745]]

  So there is the core and the energy in the Senate to do something 
aggressively, in a bipartisan way, and to do it right. I think the 
point is we need to do it aggressively and do it right and do it now. 
We can't wait.
  I see my colleague, Senator Alexander, on the floor, and I know he 
has a number of thoughts on this, and so I yield to the Senator from 
Tennessee because he is a leader on this issue.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Tennessee.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I came to the floor to join with the 
Senator from New Hampshire in congratulating the Senator from Oklahoma 
for his statesman-like comments. And not just his comments on the floor 
because those of us who know Senator Coburn know that what he says in 
public he says in private and vice versa, and we respect his views on 
fiscal matters. What he said was that we in the Senate have a 
responsibility to make sure we do nothing to cause a crisis in 
confidence, or more of one.
  I thank the Senator from New Hampshire for pointing out to us that 
when you say $700 billion or a trillion dollars, you are not taking 
into account the real dollars--and I will not repeat his speech about 
the cost. In fact, I will ask, if I may, a question of the Senator from 
New Hampshire, and I will yield the floor for a moment.
  We hear these numbers, a trillion dollars and $700 billion.
  May I ask the Senator from New Hampshire through the Chair, what 
would he guess the real cost of this economic recovery plan to be, this 
Secretary Paulson plan that we hear about, based on what he knows now? 
What does he suspect the real cost would be?
  Mr. GREGG. Well, nobody actually knows, is the answer to that. But 
there are some pretty good parameters you can put it within. We know 
the Bear Stearns situation, which was $29 billion by the Fed, is 
probably going to be a wash. We expect the AIG which again was the 
Federal Reserve action, not coming off our Treasury books, which was 
$85 billion--is probably going to be a winner. In other words, they 
will get more money back than they are spending. Freddie Mac and Fannie 
Mae, where we put up $200 billion, we essentially said we were willing 
to put up $200 billion and give the Treasury Secretary that type of 
authority. We have only spent $5 billion so far of that $200 billion. 
That $5 billion will net out, so the total cost of that $5 billion is 
going to be less than $5 billion, probably at the most maybe $1 
billion, maybe $1.5 billion after you net out the assets.
  So if you look at those parameters and look at the $700 billion 
number, what we are going to be buying is assets. Think of it this way: 
We are going to go out and buy a lot of cars that have been a little 
damaged; some have been really damaged. The pricing we pay for those 
cars isn't going to be what the person paid for them when they bought 
them off the lot. It is going to be what those cars are valued as 
damaged. There may be a premium, but I don't think it will be much. 
Then we will take those cars and either repair them and resell them or 
we are going to resell them, when the economy improves, as damaged 
cars. People will want them because they are going to repair them.
  In either event, we are going to get back a fair amount of the money 
we invested because we have a physical asset. It is called a mortgage-
backed security, most likely, and we own it and we can resell it or we 
can wait until it matures at face value and get the money back, having 
bought it at less than face value.
  I honestly believe, and my guess is--and everything is going to be a 
guess, but my guess is the cost of this event will be less--less--than 
the initial stimulus package which we passed around here, which was 
$140 billion. That is a guess.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, whatever the cost is, I do not want to 
see the cost of what will happen if we don't take action in the next 
few days. After you have lived a while, and after you have seen a few 
things, you begin to make some decisions based not just on the heart or 
the mind but on the gut. This is a gut decision to me, with a little 
bit of experience thrown in.
  When I was Governor of Tennessee in the mid-1980s, I had the 
misfortune of presiding over a situation where we had 40 or 50 banks 
that failed. I stayed up all night with Paul Volcker and watched the 
Federal Reserve pull its credit for one of the banks in Knoxville. And 
that set off a chain of events which, if it had been a national chain 
of events, we would have seen 1,000 or 2,000 bank failures. That is 
what we had to deal with.
  That was a controlled, small event compared to what could happen if 
we do not take steps to avert a credit crisis in the United States. 
Last week, before Thursday night's events, I was at the Volkswagen 
headquarter's opening in Virginia. I spoke with the credit manager 
there for the part of the company that loans money to people who buy 
cars, and said to me that he and people similar to him, even companies 
that large, the largest European automobile maker, were finding it 
difficult to get dollars.
  What if General Motors Acceptance Corporation or Ford or Volkswagen 
or Nissan Credit cannot go into the market to get some money? Then they 
cannot loan me money to buy a Nissan or a Ford or a Saturn. If I can't 
buy a car, then the new Volkswagen plant or the Nissan plant or the 
General Motors plant that we are so excited about, doesn't have any 
jobs.
  I applaud Senator Coburn, I applaud Senator Gregg, and the Senator 
from New Mexico, and the Republican leader here. Inaction is not an 
option here. I can only speak for one Senator, but from what I have 
heard on the Republican side of the aisle, we understand the 
seriousness of this problem. From what I have heard on the Democratic 
side of the aisle, most Democrats understand the seriousness of this 
problem. We want to put our imprint on the proposal, but we want a 
result. In my view, we must have a result to avert a set of events that 
none of us would want to see.
  For those watching the legislative process here in Washington, I want 
to make it clear to them that in my view, and I believe the sentiment 
of a great many Senators, is that we want and expect a result. We 
understand the seriousness of the problem.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Will the Senator yield for an observation?
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Of course.
  Mr. McCONNELL. I was listening carefully to Senator Gregg and the 
Senator from Tennessee, Mr. Alexander, and Senator Coburn and I see 
another of my colleagues here, Senator Domenici. Let me give a real-
world example from my State, information just received. Here is what 
this particular company experienced today.
  ``We were informed''--I will leave out the name of the bank. ``We 
were informed that an''--I will leave out the name of the county--
``industrial revenue bond issued last year could not be resold this 
week in the market because of the freeze of the credit markets.'' 
Today. ``These tax free bonds totaling $10 million were issued last 
year on a variable interest rate basis, secured by a full irrevocable 
letter of credit from one of the nation's largest and most well 
capitalized banks.''
  No credit problem at all, but no lending--freeze credit. This crisis 
we are all talking about here is not about a bunch of people on Wall 
Street. It is about a bunch of people on Main Street, and whether we 
are going to act on a bipartisan basis to restore confidence, restore 
confidence in our country and to prevent what could be a major 
catastrophic event.
  Mr. GREGG. Mr. President, if the Senator from Tennessee would allow 
me to express a question to our leader: The point the leader makes is 
absolutely valid, but it is not unique to Kentucky. We are hearing all 
over the country that municipal--communities are unable to roll over 
their municipal bonds or are getting close to that threat. We have 
heard about major corporations that have been unable to move cash into 
franchises last week because the banks did not have the wherewithal to 
move cash because of the threat and the pressure that was being put on 
their money market accounts, which they had to protect and defend.

[[Page 20746]]

  As you say, this is not a Wall Street event. This is going to be a 
Main Street event. People are going to be put out of work, they are 
going to lose their jobs, there is going to be a huge disruption. The 
potential for economic disarray is unprecedented.
  I think it is very appropriate that the Senator from Kentucky, as the 
leader, has pointed out a very real-world event here because this is 
real-world stuff. This is not theory.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, I see the Democratic whip here and I am 
glad to have an opportunity to make this point while he is here, since 
those of us on this side are Republicans.
  I applaud the reaction of Senator Obama to this economic crisis. It 
is a Presidential reaction. It is restrained. It leaves room for 
discussion and it recognizes the problem.
  I applaud Senator McCain's decision to involve himself, if he can, in 
a solution to the problem. That is the kind of leadership we should 
expect of both men, both of whom are Members of this body.
  I can't emphasize enough how much I believe this situation cries out 
for measured but urgent reaction, in a bipartisan way, by the Senate. 
Because, as all the Senators have said, if it were Wall Street, we 
could leave them to pick themselves up. But we are talking about 
whether you can get a student loan, whether you can get a car loan, 
whether you can get an auto loan, whether your money market account is 
safe, and whether you have any money on the block. That is the 
potential impact of what we are talking about and we need, within a few 
days, to take the kind of decisive action that builds confidence in our 
country.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I wanted to indicate if the minority 
leader chose to speak I will yield now and wait my turn.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Republican leader is recognized.
  Mr. McCONNELL. In addition to Senator Domenici, we have the ranking 
member of the Joint Economic Committee, I see, standing in the back. If 
it is all right with the senior Senator from New Mexico, I suggest that 
Senator Brownback go right ahead.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kansas is recognized.
  Mr. BROWNBACK. I thank my colleagues and the Senator from Kentucky 
for giving me a couple of minutes. The reason I wanted to take that is 
we had Chairman Bernanke in front of the Joint Economic Committee this 
morning for a couple of hours. Chairman Bernanke is also not only a 
student but a scholar of the Great Depression. He has studied this a 
great deal. I got to ask a question of him, as several other people did 
as well: When he looks at this situation, what similarities or 
dissimilarities does he see?
  He was very forthcoming with his comments this morning. He said of 
course our financial markets are far more complex now than they were 
during the period in the 1920s and the 1930s. But the same sort of 
systemic thing that grabbed hold and made that one of the key problems 
that made the Great Depression the length of time it was, was the 
credit markets froze up. Then they didn't respond and they didn't open 
up.
  While the market is far more complex today and people in the 1920s 
and 1930s wouldn't recognize this financial market for what it is on 
its complexities and derivatives and other things, they would recognize 
the feature of market credit freezing. He was all but saying that right 
now we are in a negative growth month or two; it could well be the 
quarter we are in. If you do not unfreeze these credit markets at this 
point in time, you are going to go into a lengthier, deeper recession 
that is going to take place because the credit is what allows small 
business to get loans to grow and what allows people to get student 
loans to go to college. It is what lubricates and lets the system grow.
  We are already in a weakened economy. You go ahead and constrict that 
credit and then don't put the mechanism in place to release and let 
that credit flow again, you are going to further jam down this economy 
and you are going to have a longer term, much more difficult situation.
  This is a guy who is not just a student, he is a scholar on the Great 
Depression in this country and the depressions that have happened in 
other countries. I think we should listen to him.
  In a real respect, we have--people may not agree with the situation 
on the war in Iraq, but we have General Petraeus, who was the general 
who led the turnaround, and General Odierno, who was there with them, 
and it was the A team that was there, and we put them on the field and 
they put forward a plan and the plan worked.
  I think we have the A team on the field now in Secretary Paulson and 
Chairman Bernanke. I do not like the idea of what is being talked 
about, but what they are saying is, if you do not do this and you leave 
these credit markets locked up or stymied a great deal, you are going 
to push this recession, in an economy that is soft, into a longer, 
deeper recession. This is not the way any of us wants to go.
  I do not know what the plan actually is that we need to pass. There 
are some changes I think we need to do in what is being proposed, 
changes that are very important for us to do. But the option of doing 
nothing is not an option. That has a huge number of problems for Main 
Street America in the time we are talking about here. I think we do 
not. The option is we have to act and we have to act right and we need 
to do so quickly so we do not have this further impacting people in a 
negative fashion.
  I thank my colleagues for allowing me to share that with them.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, first I want to say how proud I am to 
see Senators on the floor, and others I have spoken to in meetings, 
speak up on this issue. I particularly commend the former chairman of 
the Budget Committee, Senator Judd Gregg. Senator Gregg, I was chairman 
of the committee when the Resolution Trust Corporation--another one of 
these where a group of banks, called savings and loans, were going 
broke and the Federal Government had to step in. I recall having gone 
through what you are going through. What is the real value? How much is 
the real cost?
  I do laud your statesmanship and your ability to tell it to us the 
way it is. I thank you for it. I recommend you make your expertise 
available to the Senate because this is not a Republican issue, this is 
an American issue. The facts as you know them are as important to 
Democrats as they are to us.
  I commend you for that, and our leader, who made a forceful statement 
today that delays are not the order of the day, that something must be 
done.
  I talk of this issue--I have spoken two times or three times for at 
least 10 minutes on the issue and never once in those speeches did I 
mention ``Wall Street'' or ``bailout,'' because I think it is neither. 
It has nothing to do with either of those. Wall Street is a location. 
As far as a bailout, this has nothing to do with Wall Street. The 
credit market of the United States, that which makes money available 
day by day to the people of our country for any and everything--their 
car, the new car they bought, the house they added on to that they want 
to pay for--anything you want to think of that requires the exchange of 
money or the payment of something by a check, all of this requires 
liquidity. It requires that money move. When money is stopped, the 
whole thing stops.
  The best that we have in America, the two men representing the 
executive branch, I think are as good as we could have. They are 
telling us they have a way to attack that problem and perhaps come out 
of it without having to spend all the money we put up, that we will let 
the Treasury Department use to try to buy these assets that are 
stopping up things and take them to the trust corporation and see what 
happens over time.
  In the meantime, the money for Americans must be loosened. That is 
the whole issue. I am glad we are talking about it forthrightly and 
honestly and that each Senator who has spoken

[[Page 20747]]

has spoken of the fact that we ought to get this done as soon as 
possible. Time is hurting Americans, and the longer we wait the more 
difficult it gets for us to get it done.
  I also laud the two candidates for President. It is no use running 
for President of the United States if, when you get there, America has 
gone bankrupt or is in the middle of a recession so big that it 
approaches a depression.
  From my vantage point, things are not going to get better until we do 
something rather extraordinary. Two experts have told us what that is. 
They have a plan. I don't have a plan. I hope other people don't have 
plans. I hope we build on the plan submitted to us.
  With that, I will yield the floor. Once again, I thank Senators who 
have had the courage and the will to understand that this is a big 
American problem requiring big actors who are not worried about their 
reelection but worried about America's future.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The assistant majority leader.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, late last night, about 11:30 p.m., I 
received an e-mail on my BlackBerry from my fellow Senator from 
Illinois, Senator Obama. He said he needed to talk to me. I called him 
this morning, reached him at about 8 a.m. this morning, and we had a 
conversation. He said: I am going to call Senator McCain and I am going 
to suggest to him that we both come out with a joint statement saying 
that Congress should respond as quickly as possible to deal with the 
economic challenges facing the United States and that we should find a 
solution which includes four basic principles: Make certain there is 
transparency there so we know there are conflicts of interest, that 
they will be dealt with.
  Make certain you protect the taxpayers; give a helping hand to the 
homeowners facing foreclosure; and do something about the issue of 
executive compensation.
  He said: I have said these publicly. Senator McCain has said these 
publicly. I think it would be a healthy thing for the American 
political scene and the economy for us to depoliticize this situation, 
to take the partisan politics out of it, and to issue this joint 
statement. He asked me for my reaction, and I said I thought it was a 
good idea.
  At 9 o'clock this morning, Senator Obama made that call to Senator 
McCain, and Senator McCain returned the call at 12:30, a few hours 
later. I think they have issued that statement, and it is a positive 
one. It puts in perspective the seriousness of the challenge we face 
and establishes core principles we should follow to try to resolve it.
  Other things have happened since. There has been a suggestion by 
Senator McCain that he is going to suspend his Presidential campaign 
and come back to Washington. He can make that decision if he chooses 
to, but I think the honest answer is, he will be bringing the 
Presidential campaign with him to Washington. I am not sure that is 
going to help create a positive bipartisan or nonpartisan atmosphere to 
solve the problem.
  I think we understand what faces us here, the challenges we face. I 
think we also understand that it is best for us to meet in serious--
maybe even behind doors--closed-door meetings, and come up with a plan 
that is bipartisan, that the administration agrees with and a majority 
in Congress will agree with on a bipartisan basis. I think we should go 
forward.
  During the course of the last statement by several of my Republican 
colleagues, two of them came over to say to me: This really isn't 
political; we really think we need to work to find a solution. I 
couldn't agree more. We need to work to find a solution, and a good 
one.
  Let's remember where we are. It hasn't been 72 hours since we have 
seen the administration's proposal giving the Secretary of the Treasury 
$700 billion--more money than ever allocated in the history of our 
Republic--with virtually no strings attached. There are many of us who 
think we need to be more careful--we need to be decisive, but we need 
to be thoughtful as well. I heard Senator Dodd, as chairman of the 
Banking Committee, say: Speed is important, but getting it right is 
more important. And I think he is correct. We need to stick with this, 
roll our sleeves up, and try to find an answer.
  I will tell you, we do it in a very highly charged political 
atmosphere. I have spoken to my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, 
whose e-mail and phone responses to the bailout proposal Secretary 
Paulson has brought forward are overwhelmingly negative. It is a 
charged political atmosphere. Bringing a Presidential campaign into 
this atmosphere is not going to make it easier or more likely that it 
will come to a good ending.
  I think we need to do this in a thoughtful, quiet, and sensible way. 
I think the joint statement by Senator Obama and Senator McCain set the 
right tone, depoliticizing it at the Presidential level, and now we 
need to roll up our sleeves and go to work. Bringing all of the lights 
and cameras to Capitol Hill, bringing the Presidential campaign here is 
certainly not going to be the answer.
  I also remember that we have one of the most important events before 
us this Friday night: the first Presidential campaign debate. I think 
these debates will be widely followed by Americans across the board, 
who will measure the major candidates and make their decisions. The 
American people are entitled to that, and we need to move forward to 
make certain those debates take place so that at the Presidential and 
Vice Presidential level voters can take their measure of the 
candidates.
  But now we need to roll up our sleeves here as Members of Congress 
and the Senate and work to find this bipartisan answer. I hope we can 
do that, and I hope we follow the four principles which Senator McCain 
and Senator Obama announced today.

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