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




                          MAKE WALL STREET PAY

  (Mr. DeFAZIO asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. DeFAZIO. Henry ``Hank'' Paulson, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, has 
a plan: Borrow $700 billion in the name of the American taxpayers, 
shovel it into the vaults at Goldman Sachs and other investment banks 
and places on Wall Street, and hopefully it will trickle down and 
somehow solve the underlying housing problem.
  We spent all week trying to figure out a way to protect the American 
taxpayers with his faulty plan. There really is no way to do that, 
except for one: Make Wall Street pay to bail out itself.
  From 1914 until 1966, there was a tiny fee assessed on every 
transaction on Wall Street. In fact, the Congress, over the objections 
of Wall Street, doubled it in 1935 at the height of the Great 
Depression. It had no impact on Wall Street. It could raise the money 
Wall Street needs to heal itself.
  Let's remember all that rhetoric about bootstraps and all that. Let 
Wall Street pull itself up by its own bootstraps, and assess a 
minuscule fee on every stock transaction. It is done in London; it can 
be done in the U.S. Wall Street can pay for its own bailout. Call now.

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