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




                            ECONOMIC RESCUE

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, after Monday's vote in the House, the 
question is not how we got here but how we get out and how to get our 
economy back on its feet. So after extensive consultation between the 
majority leader and myself and the leaders in both parties here in the 
Senate, we believe we have crafted a way to go forward and to get us 
back on track. This is the only way to get the right kind of solution 
for the American people. Both Senator Obama and Senator McCain are 
coming back tonight to embrace this effort and to help us reassure the 
American people that we are going to fix this problem.
  No one is happy with the situation we are in, but it is a situation 
that we have. And the American people didn't send us here just to do 
easy things; they expect us to rise to big challenges and to put aside 
differences and to work on their behalf. So tonight the Senate will 
vote on an economic rescue plan designed to shield millions of 
Americans from shockwaves of a problem they didn't create.
  We have two problems. We have the equity markets and we have the 
credit markets, and a way of thinking of it is like this: You could 
think of our whole economy as the human body, but the credit markets 
are the circulatory system. Right now, as the distinguished majority 
leader pointed out, the credit markets are frozen, so the circulatory 
system is not working as it should. If the circulatory system doesn't 
work, it begins to choke off the body--the economy. With the step we 
take tonight, we are confident we will be able to restore the 
circulatory system, if you will, and regain health for the economy--the 
body, if you will--and get the problem fixed for the American people.
  I said yesterday that we are going to fix this problem this week. The 
Senate will speak tonight. We will send to the House a package that, if 
passed, will address the issue.
  We will have demonstrated to the American people that we can deal 
with the crisis in the most difficult of times--right before an 
election, when the tendency to be the most partisan is the greatest. 
But we are in the process of setting that aside, rising to the 
challenge--both Democrats and Republicans--and doing what is right for 
the American people.
  I yield the floor.

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