[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 24014-24015]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            THE BAILOUT BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Mr. Speaker, today we passed a truly historic bill 
because the Secretary of Treasury had come forward and told us that if 
we didn't pass it, we were to be afraid, be very afraid.
  So people were beginning to panic around the country. Credit was 
freezing up. It was before and even more so after he spoke. And so it 
was necessary that we do something.
  For most of us, we heard from a lot of people saying please don't 
bail out Wall Street, don't give them $700 billion. The last couple of 
days we heard from car dealers, from bankers, from shopkeepers, small 
mom and pop businesses about to go out of business saying you've got to 
do something. So Secretary Paulson's scare tactics had worked. The 
underlying problems may still be there. In fact, some of them are, and 
we still need to address them, and I have confidence that we will.
  The underlying banks had money. The community banks, solid. But there 
is a crisis of confidence and lending is coming to a halt.
  Now, some problems in the industry were created by Congress where we 
forced people to lend money to people they wouldn't have otherwise. 
That's a problem. That needed to be fixed. But we were told basically 
in theory by the

[[Page 24015]]

Secretary that this would be a type of shock and awe, that we would put 
so much money into the Wall Street market that it would shock the 
economy and people would respond favorably and everything would be 
great as a result.
  I, like my friend Ms. Foxx, hope that this works. I don't think it 
was necessary. I think it was problematic. And it ought to scare people 
when the government says, we need $700 billion to bail out an industry 
and that will make everybody better, and please raise the debt ceiling 
by $1.3 trillion. I thought it was just $700 billion. Well, we raised 
the debt ceiling by $1.3 trillion today just in case.
  Apparently, the good news is we will spend $700 billion completely at 
the Secretary of the Treasury's whim, as he determines. You will see in 
the bill, those that bothered to read it, over and over ``as the 
Secretary determines,'' ``as the Secretary determines.'' And then we 
are going to have to hire some people to manage all these assets that 
we're buying. That may be outside the $700 billion. Maybe that's why we 
need to raise the limit to $1.3 trillion.
  But being an historical fan, being such a student of history, you 
cannot find in the history of the Nation a time before when this 
government, this Congress, had so much faith in one person that they 
said, ``Here is $700 billion. Do with it as you will. Make our Nation 
well.''
  Now, if you go back before our Constitution of 1787, you will find 
that one time something like this was done, in 1776, December 27 to be 
exact. Many of the people that had signed up in the Army had done so 
for 6 months, and they signed up around the time of the Declaration of 
Independence; so their time was going to be up in January. The 
Continental Congress heard that many of them would not reenlist; so 
they were scared.
  George Washington never asked for this kind of power, but they knew 
this man. They knew he was not in it for himself and he wouldn't reward 
his friends. He was doing everything he could, to the tune of 
sacrificing his life and his fortune to help create this great land. So 
they gave him this power. He didn't use it. When he tried to get the 
guys to enlist, he gave one of the most impassioned speeches, and his 
pure leadership and example was enough to inspire them.
  Well, there's a picture in the Rotunda just down the hall of him 
coming in. He wrote Bible verses on his resignation, and he tendered 
the resignation and did something no one had ever done in history: led 
a Revolutionary Army, won the Revolution, and then came in, resigned, 
and went home. Nobody had ever done it before or since. They could 
trust that man.
  I've studied history. I am a fan of George Washington. He is a hero 
of mine. And Secretary Henry Paulson is no George Washington.
  So let me leave you with this: When you hear anybody in the 
government say ``We're going to take your tax dollars and we're going 
to make you money,'' then that's when you need to be afraid because 
they have moved over into the socialist realm. And you can always make 
more money than the government can.
  That's the thought I leave with you, with the hope and prayer that 
this does inspire the confidence that was looked for so the economy 
does free up. I had hoped leadership would do it, but now apparently it 
will take $700 billion, and may God help us all.

                          ____________________