[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 16]
[House]
[Page 22683]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      CONGRESS MUST KEEP TAXPAYER FIRST WHEN ASSISTING WALL STREET

  (Mrs. BLACKBURN asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. BLACKBURN. Mr. Speaker, it is becoming painfully clear to us and 
now we know that Americans should not be forced to endure a prolonged 
and painful economic downturn to pay for the sins of Fannie, Freddie or 
discredited Wall Street executives. The question that is being asked by 
many of our constituents is, all right, now what are we going to do?
  So let me be clear. I do not support a bailout of Wall Street firms 
funded by hundreds of billions of taxpayers dollars. There are smarter 
ways for us to handle this.
  The President and congressional leaders should set a timeline for 
legislation, come to mark it up, and look at things from both the short 
and the long-term. We have learned that the ad hoc approach to bailing 
out companies in the past few weeks just has not worked. What we need 
is a workout plan that leverages Wall Street's assets and ingenuity to 
bring the economy back to health while protecting the American 
taxpayer.
  Any deal that comes forward should limit the cash available to 
Secretary Paulson. We cannot write one man, no matter how experienced 
or smart, a check for $700 billion of the taxpayers' money.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope that we continue to work forward on this and keep 
the American taxpayer first and foremost in our thoughts.

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