[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 16]
[House]
[Page 21526]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                THE NATION'S CURRENT FINANCIAL SITUATION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Minnesota (Mrs. Bachmann) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. BACHMANN. Mr. Speaker, the context of my remarks is engaging the 
issue of the current financial situation that the United States finds 
itself in.
  Mr. Speaker, it was less than 1 year ago that the government began 
Bailout Nation, which was $700 billion in tax money that was given to 
the United States Treasury Secretary for the purpose of stabilizing 
America's financial situation. Let's take just a brief history of what 
has happened in the United States in just less than 1 year's time.
  This Congress appropriated essentially a blank check to the Treasury 
Secretary of $700 billion, a blank check. The Treasury Secretary 
literally could do anything he wanted to do with that $700 billion. 
That $700 billion went to the Treasury Secretary. It's gone to bail out 
banks. It's gone to bail out an insurance company, and it has gone to 
set up the automobile task force.
  In that time we have seen $700 billion go not only for that bailout; 
we also saw $29 billion go to Bear Stearns to shore up that investment 
banking house. We also saw $200 billion go for Fannie and Freddie, the 
secondary mortgage company, because, remember, all of this began with a 
meltdown in the housing industry. So we thought, first of all, money 
needed to go to bail out the secondary mortgage provider.
  Almost all loans today in the United States are now backed up by the 
Federal Government. This is amazing what has happened to our country in 
less than 1 year's time. We saw over $100 billion of our tax money go 
to bail out the largest insurance company in the United States, AIG. 
Still the United States taxpayer has yet to be repaid the money for 
AIG. We have yet to be made whole.
  We have yet to be made whole for the money that was extended to 
General Motors and Chrysler. That's tens of billions of dollars that 
were given to the car companies. We were told that we had to give them 
tens of billions so they wouldn't go into bankruptcy. Well, lo and 
behold, what happened? Both GM and Chrysler went into bankruptcy.
  We were told that we had to give all of this money to Freddie and 
Fannie so that they won't go into bankruptcy, and we continue to pour 
taxpayer money into Freddie and Fannie. Not only that, the American 
taxpayer was told to give another $75 billion in mortgage bailout 
money.
  At what point do we say enough is enough? Two hundred billion dollars 
for the secondary mortgage company, another $75 billion for mortgage 
bailout. But that wasn't enough because the American taxpayers were 
told we needed to give a trillion dollars in stimulus programs. A 
trillion dollars. That money hasn't been completely let out, thank God. 
Every penny that hasn't let out at this point should be reeled back in, 
and we shouldn't be committing any more of that money.
  We also agreed in this body to spend another $400 billion in an end-
of-the-year budget gap that we were able to shore up.
  At this point we know the Congressional Budget Office has said that 
our country will be in deficit $1.6 trillion this year, and it may get 
worse. How do we know that? Unemployment is at 9.7 percent, and 
President Obama's own economic adviser has said if we pass his version 
of the government takeover of health care, we will lose 5.5 million 
more jobs. We have lost 4 million jobs. If we pass President Obama's 
health care reform, by his numbers, we will lose another 5.5 million 
jobs. And if we pass his national energy tax, the cap-and-trade bill, 
this energy tax, by President Obama's own numbers, will cost our 
economy an additional 2.5 million jobs lost every year going forward. 
This doesn't seem to be working for us as we look at this 1-year 
anniversary of Lehman Brothers collapsing.
  So now the Federal Government owns or controls 30 percent of all 
private business profits. And if President Obama gets his way and takes 
over another 18 percent of our economy in health care, that means the 
Federal Government will own or control 48 percent of private business 
profits. Just think, a year ago 100 percent of private business profits 
were private. Today we're looking at the specter of 48 percent of 
private business profits owned or controlled by the Federal Government.
  Mr. Speaker, that's why the American people are nervous. That's why 
they don't want government to own or control any more of our economy.

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