[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 17]
[Senate]
[Pages 23505-23506]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        FINANCIAL RESCUE PACKAGE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, yesterday Senator McConnell and I came to 
the floor to discuss the way forward on the financial rescue package. 
We agreed that now is not the time for politics or partisanship. Every 
Member of this Senate could probably write a better bill than we have 
here, but this was a jointly agreed upon bill. When I say jointly, I 
mean the House and Senate working with people from the administration. 
We agreed that now--I repeat--now is not the time for partisanship. 
Literally, the security and well-being of the American people are at 
risk, and we have to work together to solve this crisis. So last night, 
Democrats and Republicans gave consent to move to a vote later today on 
a package of bills that will stabilize our economy, restore confidence 
among consumers and businesses, and create new jobs and economic 
growth.
  This package of bills will include the Emergency Economic 
Stabilization Act, which will increase Federal coverage of bank 
deposits to $250,000. It will have the Senate-passed tax extenders, 
along with other things in it, including long-overdue legislation to 
honor Senator Wellstone and Senator Domenici, who worked for more than 
a decade--Senator Wellstone, of course, was killed in that unfortunate 
airplane crash, but this has been going on for years while Senator 
Wellstone served here in the Senate working with Senator Domenici. As 
Senator Domenici leaves this body, he will now finally be able to claim 
the ownership he deserves on this legislation to provide parity in 
health care coverage for Americans who suffer from mental health 
illness.
  The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act is vastly improved over the 
version we received initially from Secretary Paulson. We have worked 
together, Democrats and Republicans, by adding significant oversight in 
how public funds are spent, we have stopped golden parachutes for 
executives at taxpayer expense, we have provided taxpayers with a 
greater likelihood of a return on the funds spent and help for 
homeowners facing foreclosure.
  To this bedrock plan we added an increase in FDIC insurance for bank 
account deposits from $100,000 to $250,000, which will give consumers 
renewed confidence that the safety of their savings is ironclad. This 
is especially important for community-owned banks, for small banks, and 
rural America.

[[Page 23506]]

  We include tax extenders to lower taxes for middle-class families, 
businesses, and for private sector entrepreneurs and producing clean, 
renewable, alternative energy sources. These tax cuts will create 
hundreds of thousands of jobs here in America, spark investment in the 
economy by small businesses and large businesses, and help chart our 
course away from imported oil toward the homegrown fuels of tomorrow.
  There are a few people in the House who would rather we did this some 
other way, and we have tried other ways. I say to my friends in the 
House of Representatives, we have to get this done. We cannot leave 
Washington without doing the financial rescue package and this tax 
extenders bill. People are waiting. People have been laid off.
  Senator Durbin and I had a man come to us--an immigrant from the 
Ukraine--who has been extremely successful in America. He is an 
American citizen, of course. He came to us and said: If you don't pass 
the tax extenders, I am going to lose my business; people will be laid 
off. Hundreds of people will be laid off. He had loans for developing 
these businesses, and if the tax extenders did not come forward, they 
wouldn't loan him the money. They would call back the loans, is what he 
told us.
  So legislation is never perfect, but we have done our best, and these 
tax extenders are so important for the American people. It would not be 
good for us to leave here--it would be a blight on this Congress--and 
not pass these tax extenders. These aren't for the wealthy, they are 
for people who are working for a living and trying to keep a job. And 
jobs will be created. I repeat, tens of thousands of jobs will be 
created.
  I believe every part of this bill enjoys bipartisan support. Every 
part is aimed directly at the heart of our financial crisis. No one is 
happy about paying for this dramatic and expensive step with the 
bailout. No one is glad we have reached this critical point. Senator 
Obama said yesterday that there will be plenty of time to assign blame. 
Now is our time to work--not as Democrats, not as Republicans, but as 
guardians of the public trust--to forge a better way ahead.
  So I am hopeful that tonight we will see a strong vote in support of 
this plan and that the bipartisanship shown here in the Senate today 
will spark the House of Representatives to do the same.
  Mr. President, the Founding Fathers were very visionary in setting up 
this unique system we have here--the legislative system. We have three 
separate but equal branches of Government. But the legislative branch 
was set up by our Founding Fathers so that there would be internal 
strife. That is the way they set it up. Members of the House of 
Representatives are elected for 2-year terms, we have 6-year terms, and 
a lot of the time there is envy and jealousy as to how we do what in 
each body. But in the end, we need to work together. We get a lot of 
stuff from the House that we don't like in the way they have written 
it, but that is who they are. They do not like what we send them, and 
they probably think they could do a better job than we have--and maybe 
they could have--but this is what we are going to send them.
  I hope, as soon as the House can move, they will move quickly--maybe 
tomorrow--so that by this weekend rolling around we will have done what 
we need to do for the American people. I repeat, this isn't for Lower 
Manhattan, this is for people in Elkhorn, NV, in Reno, NV, and in Las 
Vegas, NV. This is so people can keep their jobs and be able to buy 
cars and get a loan to take care of that car. It is so a car dealer 
will be able to do as they have done for decades and borrow money to 
buy cars so they have cars to sell. Right now, they can't do that. I 
got a call yesterday from a car dealer in Las Vegas saying that he 
can't buy any cars and that he needs to have inventory. He said if 
somebody tries to buy a car, most people can't get a loan. And it is 
going to get worse, not better, unless we do something.

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