[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 16]
[House]
[Page 21996]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              WALL STREET

  (Mr. McDERMOTT asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Madam Speaker, there is something every American 
should remember as we deal with the administration's economic crisis. 
For almost 8 years, President Bush and the Republican Party have been 
staging events, issuing press releases, and telling everyone that we 
have to privatize Social Security and give it to Wall Street to invest.
  For almost 8 years, the President and the Republicans have been 
telling the American people that Wall Street will wave its magic wand 
and inflate Social Security to Social Nirvana. They want satchels of 
money dropped off by that statue down on Wall Street of the bull, and 
they promise that Wall Street will use an incantation, something like 
``hocus pocus,'' and they would work out their magic--for a fee, of 
course.
  Democrats and Americans managed to hold their ground and have not 
taken this greedy plan to grab their Social Security. But the Wall 
Street Wonders worked their so-called magic in a lot of other places, 
and their outcome is just this: Now you see it, now you don't.
  That describes the administration's bailout plan: Give us $700 
billion and, like magic, the problems will go away. Hocus pocus, it's 
time for the administration to declare the magic wand option is off the 
table. It is time to recognize government has a responsibility to 
protect the people.

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