[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 23726-23727]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     FREE MARKET, NOT SPREE MARKET

  (Mr. KUCINICH asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. KUCINICH. If someone sticks up a bank, they get a jail sentence. 
Wall Street sticks up the Nation, they get a $700 billion bailout. The 
free market doesn't mean Wall Street should be free to steal from the 
American taxpayer. It's a free market, not a spree market.
  The American values of fairness, frugality, and faith are being 
sacrificed to greed. The Senate took a dreadful bill that failed on the 
House floor and made no substantive changes to help homeowners and to 
enact substantive regulatory protections for investors, and instead 
attached tax provisions that have absolutely nothing to do with the 
underlying financial crisis.
  Among the tax credits are tax credits for banks; we're borrowing 
money from banks to give money to banks, and we take toxic assets in 
return. The problem is people can't pay for their mortgages and their 
homes are endangered. You have to remember this: if this bill passes, 
it doesn't address the underlying crisis. People can't pay for their 
mortgages. The market may go up temporarily, but people will still be 
losing their homes, and what will we have accomplished? Wake up, 
America.

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