[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 7460-7466]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       THE FINANCIAL BAILOUT BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, it has been an interesting week. It's 
been an interesting time. And there are things that we agree on between 
our parties.
  I heard my friends across the aisle talking about we need to have an 
audit of the Federal Reserve, and that is certainly something that I 
agree with and everybody on my side I know agrees with. We ought to 
have an audit of the Federal Reserve. As Newt Gingrich has said 
repeatedly, if transparency is good enough for the CIA, it ought to be 
good enough for the Federal Reserve. We need to know what they are 
committing us to. We need to know what they're doing, how much trouble 
are they getting us in. Those are things that need to be known. So I am 
delighted to hear my friends across the aisle join us in our cry for an 
audit of the Federal Reserve.
  The difference between friends on this side and friends across the 
aisle is that my friends across the aisle have the numbers, they have 
the power to get an audit done of the Federal Reserve. There are a 
number of things that can be done when you control the House and the 
Senate and the White House. And even if the White House doesn't agree, 
which they very well may not because of all the shenanigans that have 
been going on in the financial realm, the Congress still controls the 
purse strings. And there are things

[[Page 7461]]

that can be done in this House and down the hall in the Senate that 
would bring this to a head and would have the Federal Reserve crying 
uncle, uncle, all right, we will go ahead and allow the audit. It ought 
to be done. Enough of the shenanigans, blaming one side or the other.
  Well, the majority party has such a massive majority, it's a real 
easy thing to get done, and I would be delighted if we had colleagues 
across the aisle that would come together with us on this side and 
require that audit of the Federal Reserve so we would know what has 
actually been going on so we could set some goals and go about fixing 
this economy, fixing this broken financial system so we could get it 
back on a road that makes some sense.
  Now, I have heard my friends across the aisle talking down here today 
and as well yesterday evening about the financial bailout, and I was 
rather disappointed. I know some, like my friend Marcy Kaptur, have 
been adamant about the problems going on in the financial system going 
back to the fall of 2008. And she and I, there are many things we don't 
agree on, but we are both for complete transparency--she has been there 
all along--and demanding full responsibility and accountability in the 
financial sector. And I have been so pleased with things she said in 
the last couple of years on this issue since the TARP bailout in 
September, October of 2008.
  But then hearing other colleagues across the aisle talk about 
Republicans are trying to stop financial reform because Republicans are 
so closely aligned with Wall Street? I mean, that theme has been played 
long and loud for years. And the Heritage Foundation finally had enough 
and said let's see what the truth is. So they did some research. And 
the fact is anybody in America can go on Huffington Post or look at 
some of these Web sites where you find out who contributed to what, and 
you find out the real truth. And the real truth is that Wall Street 
donates to the Democratic Party and to now President Obama about four 
to one over the Republicans.
  Now, you can go to Goldman Sachs and find an officer who has made a 
maximum donation to Senator Obama and a maximum donation to Senator 
McCain; but you do a little more research and you check that address 
and you find out, well, gee, the wife and all the children, though, 
made maximum donations to Senator Obama and to the Democratic Party. 
And you find out, gee, there is a financial link here that there have 
been completely misleading statements about for years. And the truth is 
now in black and white. Let's forget the misleading statements about 
who is in bed with whom and just follow the money, and that's all you 
have to do. And you find out in some cases some of the Wall Street 
firms, it may be three to one, some it may be five to one, but average 
about four to one donations from Wall Street firms to the Democratic 
candidates, including Senator Obama, now President Obama.
  So once you know that is the relationship that exists financially and 
has for years, then it causes you to look at all this talk about 
financial reform and making these people accountable. We're going to 
bring them to bear. We're going to make them account for all of these 
things, and we're going to make it so that they can't do this and they 
can't do that. But once you know that the people that are doing this 
so-called financial reform, what amounts to another bailout bill, once 
you know that relationship, then you have to look at the bill being 
proposed more carefully.
  Now, I know we have friends that come here to the floor and, just 
like they did on the ``crap and trade'' bill, made statements on the 
floor that this bill will not cause one single person to lose their 
jobs, that this is going to be a job creation bill. And they got their 
talking points and they dutifully came to the floor, and they talked 
about how the crap and trade bill was going to be so wonderful and it 
was going to create jobs.
  And I was able to come to this very spot on the floor and pull out 
that bill. Of course, we didn't get that last 300 pages until--it seems 
like it was around 3 in the morning or so. And then actually we did not 
have a complete bill when that bill passed. Up there at the Clerk's 
desk, I kept asking for a copy of the full bill assimilated, and we 
found out there wasn't one. It was in the process of being assimilated; 
so nobody on this floor could see a complete bill assimilated and know 
what all it meant together. And yet that got rammed through.
  But just on the original about a 1,000-page crap and trade bill, if 
you went back to 900-and-something in the pages, I was able to point 
out there was a fund there created in the bill that obviously my 
colleagues were not aware of because I know they wouldn't come down 
here and intentionally mislead people, but whether it was the liberal 
left wing groups that wrote that bill--we know that we had a chairman 
or two that said they didn't know what was in the bill even though it 
was coming through their committee. Somebody knew. So since it wasn't 
the committee Chair, the Members of Congress that were on the 
committee, since it wasn't Members on the floor because they weren't 
sure--they were making statements about the bill like nobody losing 
their job that obviously wasn't true because there was a fund created 
that would pay people who lost their jobs as a result of that bill.
  So whatever liberal left wing group or whatever special interest 
groups wrote that bill for the Members of Congress that was rushed in 
here, so much of it, at 3 in the morning when people couldn't read the 
assimilated bill, whoever wrote that bill knew people would be losing 
their jobs as a result of that bill, pure and simple. They were losing 
their jobs.
  There was even a fund in there that would provide some remuneration 
for people who lost their jobs as a result of the bill and had to move 
to follow the job. But, unfortunately, in that bill, the crap and trade 
bill, there was no provision to pay for travel to India or China or 
Argentina or the other places that those jobs were going to likely be 
going; so they weren't going to be able to follow the bills. The one 
good thing for those who voted for that disastrous bill here in the 
House is that I still feel strongly that once people find out what all 
was in that bill that they voted for, then they will lose their jobs. 
Many of them will lose their jobs in here as a Member of the House as a 
result of that bill. So it looks like the good news for those that vote 
for the bill and lose their job as a result of it is that there's a 
built-in provision that may provide them with some compensation and 
travel expense when they lose their job as a result of voters finding 
out what all is in that bill.
  But that is the kind of thing we have dealt with here, people meaning 
well, getting their talking points, thinking they were telling the 
truth, coming in here and passionately proclaiming what was put before 
them, but not reading the bill. That is so important. So when we apply 
this cynicism, once you know that the people that are pushing this bill 
are the ones that have benefited four to one in contributions from 
these very firms that will be so-called ``reformed,'' then you take a 
more skeptical look at what's in the bill and we get to find out a 
little bit more about what is in it, because obviously some of my 
friends have not looked at it thoroughly enough to know what is in it 
and to know that it's really not the financial reform bill that they 
thought it was.
  It's more of a financial ``deform'' bill, more of another bailout 
bill, or I would say perhaps we could rename it the Goldman Sachs 
monopoly bill. A friend across the aisle had a blowup of some of the 
monopoly pieces. It applies. That's a perfect, perfect display for this 
financial bailout bill because it's going to allow certain firms to 
have monopolies. This bill is going to create some monopolies.

                              {time}  1730

  One of the truths about this bill is that there are backdoor 
bailouts. Despite the rhetoric, there are backdoor bailouts in this 
financial deform bill, or the Goldman Sachs monopoly bill. The Dodd 
bill from the Senate, it codifies these backdoor bailouts that were 
used by the Federal Reserve to pump

[[Page 7462]]

money into Bear Stearns. It also was used by the Federal Reserve to 
pump money into AIG, into Fannie Mae, into Freddie Mac.
  And then this thing that troubles me so deeply, systemic risk 
council. It's in the bill, a systemic risk council. I was hoping 2 
years ago, as we got into the TARP business, and some of us actually 
read that disastrous bill and could see that this was just not 
something that should be done in America, some of us hoped, well, since 
we have seen that Secretary Paulson is completely sold out to Goldman 
Sachs, it's an effort to bail out the buddies at Goldman Sachs, yes, we 
are bailing out AIG apparently, he wanted to do that, and lo and behold 
billions of dollars turn around and go straight from AIG to Goldman 
Sachs. So it did help his friends. But some of us had hoped that Mr. 
Bernanke might be the level head in all of this.
  But having been in meetings with Mr. Bernanke, and having watched him 
closely on television and read so many of his comments, it appears that 
he has been caught up as well in this power grab, in this lofty ivory 
tower he has been placed in with this incredible amount of power 
without accountability. It was Stalin who said, ``With power, 
dizziness.'' And we have seen some of that dizziness in the way these 
financial markets have been handled by people at the top.
  But it appears from the things Mr. Bernanke has been saying that he 
has bought in hook, line, and sinker into this systemic risk business 
because he could get to say, you know what, this is who I'm naming a 
systemic risk. And when the Federal Government says this firm or this 
bank, this company is too big to fail, that means the Federal 
Government will not let them fail. That means they can go in the red 
and run their competition out of business, knowing the Federal 
Government will not let them fail, but their competitors don't have 
that assurance.
  That's why you might as well call it a monopoly bill, because it's 
going to allow firms to become monopolies. And we saw after the TARP 
firm, boy, Goldman Sachs got to be a bank in addition to being 
everything else to all people.
  One of the things that concerned me as I read through the TARP bill, 
when I got toward the end where it said that it was raising the debt 
ceiling by $1.3 trillion, and we knew that it was a $700 billion bill, 
well, why would you need to raise the debt ceiling $1.3 trillion if it 
is a $700 billion bill? And of course we know there was $100 billion 
added to the bill in order to buy enough votes to get it to pass. So 
it's an $800 billion bill and yet it raised the debt ceiling $1.3 
trillion. Well, there's a half a trillion dollars there for some reason 
that was built into that.
  So I went back through and I reread the bill, and I kept pleading and 
begging with other colleagues, Please, just read the bill. You'll see 
we don't do this in America. We don't give one man $700 billion and 
say, go play with it and fix this and make us better. We never have 
done that in America since we've had a Constitution. With that 
qualification.
  There was a man in American history that had that type of power that 
was given by the Continental Congress by a bill that was passed 
December 27, 1776. His name was George Washington. This was a humble 
man. This was a man who made the statement, ``People unused to 
restraint must be led. They will not be drove.'' And so like in the 
Battle of Trenton or in that 1755 disastrous ambush that the British 
walked into and didn't listen to Washington, who was in his early 
twenties, we have seen pictures over and over painted by those there 
that Washington didn't do as I was taught in the Army, that commanders 
are normally supposed to stay at the back and command from the back and 
coordinate things. Washington in some of the worst battles knew he 
needed to be out front so people would see him and do the right thing.
  There was one soldier after the Battle of Trenton that wrote home 
talking about how afraid he was with so many people dying. He said, 
``But when I saw bullets flying around that priceless head of our great 
general, encouraging us as he went, sir, I thought not of myself.'' Now 
that was a leader. Not Hank Paulson we're talking about. That's not a 
leader. We're talking George Washington.
  And when the Continental Congress was afraid that the people who had 
signed up for 6 months' enlistment around July 4th, around the time of 
the Declaration of Independence, when their enlistment was coming up, 
they got word these guys may not reenlist. So they passed a bill 
basically giving Washington the power to make whatever contract, pay 
whatever he needed to pay. We didn't have a Constitution yet. But they 
knew this man and said, ``You fix it.'' And they sent a cover letter 
that in essence was saying that we know you well enough to know our 
liberty is not at risk. And when you have no further need of this 
power, you'll give it back. And he did, like no man has ever done 
before or since in history.
  But in 1787 we got a Constitution. Since that Constitution we have 
never allowed one man to do what Hank Paulson and now Tim Geithner are 
being allowed to do, and with Bernanke's assistance. It's a disaster. 
Systemic risk council. We are going to decide who wins and who loses in 
America? And you want us on this side of the aisle to vote for this 
bill? And you call it a financial reform bill? It isn't. This is not 
reforming things. This is taking us away from the free market 
principles from which we have been running for far too long.
  That TARP bill took us away from it. And some of us prayed that we 
would have a chance to get back on track, and we have run farther and 
farther. And it gives no comfort when people on the other side of the 
aisle say, well, your President started this with a TARP bailout. Yes, 
and it was wrong then and it's become even worse of a nightmare.
  Stop already. Return liberty and freedom back to people. I'm not 
talking about unregulated financial markets. We have the regulations. 
Just like we have regulations that would have allowed the President, 
the executive branch, the administration to monitor more carefully what 
was going on in the Gulf of Mexico, to monitor more carefully what 
Madoff was doing, what Goldman Sachs was doing, how the credit default 
swaps were allowed to be insurance without putting money in reserve to 
insure against that insurable event out there they were supposed to be 
taking premiums for.
  This is not a financial reform bill. And to stand here on the floor 
and say Republicans are standing in the way of this, you betcha. I 
don't want a Goldman Sachs monopoly bill being passed into law and 
signed into law simply because they gave four to one more money to the 
Democratic Party than they did to the Republicans. I don't care if they 
gave four to one to Republicans, it is wrong to give them the kind of 
monopoly that they have been given through TARP and in the year-and-a-
half since. It's got to stop. And this bill is not the bill that will 
do that.
  So don't come to the floor and talk about how this is going to reform 
things and create accountability because it gives unrestricted leeway 
to give any nonbank financial company ``too big to fail'' status. What 
a disaster for this society, for this incredible gift of a country we 
have been given.
  Now we are not blessed in this body and in this country because of 
what we ourselves who stand as elected officials today have done. We 
are not blessed because of what we have done. We have been blessed 
because of the sacrifices of the Founders and those over the years that 
worked so hard to make this country into the greatest Nation that has 
ever existed in the history of mankind. And now we have people that are 
peeling back the very principles that made this such an incredible 
place to get to live in.
  Well, let's look some more at this financial bailout bill, financial 
deform bill, whatever you want to call it. There is a 100 percent 
bailout for creditors in this bill. So a failed firm's creditors and 
counterparties could recoup far more of their investment, potentially 
100 percent, than they would

[[Page 7463]]

if they went through a normal bankruptcy proceeding.
  We have seen enough of the corruption of the bankruptcy system. The 
provision for the bankruptcy system was put into the Constitution by 
those people with such incredible foresight. Unfortunately, it was into 
the early 1800s before they actually passed laws creating the 
bankruptcy courts that allowed people to avoid debtors' prisons like 
the financial backer of the Revolution, Mr. Morris.
  But this bill that's being touted as such a great financial reform 
bill will also allow the FDIC to guarantee debt obligations of failing 
Wall Street firms without limitation and without congressional 
approval. You want us to vote for a bill that allows debt guarantees 
for failing Wall Street firms without this body approving of them and 
you call that a financial reform bill?
  Also under this so-called financial reform bill, what's really more 
of a financial deform bill, the Secretary of the Treasury is authorized 
to purchase debt without any limit. You know, Washington gave back the 
power as soon as the Revolution was won. Four years later we got the 
Constitution, and we have never allowed this kind of insanity since 
then.
  And yes, Secretary Paulson under a Republican President created this 
monstrosity and bailed out his buddies effectively, but it's got to 
stop. It's got to stop. And this bill is just more and more and more of 
the same.
  On May 5, 2010--for people keeping track that is yesterday--Freddie 
Mac requested an additional $10.6 billion in bailout funds. Between 
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the taxpayers have already lost $126.9 
billion bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And now it appears that 
is just bottomless. It's got to stop. Don't ask us to come in here and 
pass another further power extension to those who are already dizzy 
with too much power and no accountability. It's got to stop.
  This financial so-called reform bill, this Wall Street future bailout 
bill is a disastrous mistake. And, heaven help us, we should not pass 
this bill. We have lost enough rights and power to Wall Street already.
  So I hope and pray this Day of National Prayer that those who have 
been getting the four to one contributions over Republicans from Wall 
Street firms will say, sorry, guys on Wall Street, we started playing 
this game and saying Republicans are in bed with you. Oh, yeah, 
yesterday one of our friends across the aisle said that, gee, these 
Wall Street firms are having closed-door meetings with Republicans. 
They may have been. And you can imagine what's being said. They've cut 
their deals with the people that they've been giving four to one to 
over Republicans. They've cut their deal. They know they are going to 
be sitting so pretty, they're going to have monopolistic ability like 
never before in history.

                              {time}  1745

  So they want to meet privately with Republicans and say, Look, you 
don't have to worry. We're really getting serious oversight from these 
Democrats, the ones we give four-to-one over Republicans to. We're 
really getting serious oversight here in this bill. We just need you to 
come on board. No telling what kind of things they're telling 
Republican Senators behind the scenes to try to get them on board with 
this terrible financial deform bill.
  But let me point out something that I did find as I went back through 
and tried to figure out, well, where could that other $500 billion, 
between the $800 billion designated in the TARP bill and the amount 
that the debt limit was raised, what loopholes may be in this bill? As 
I went back through it, one of the things I found was this provision. 
The all caps title of this little section, title 1, section 101(c)(1), 
Public Law 110-343. It says:
  The Secretary is authorized to take such actions as the Secretary 
deems necessary to carry out the authorities in this act, including, 
without limitation, the following:
  One, the Secretary shall have direct hiring authority with respect to 
the appointment of employees to administer this act;
  Number two, entering into contracts, including contracts for services 
authorized by section 3109 of title 5, United States Code;
  Number three, designating financial institutions as financial agents 
of the Federal Government. Such institutions shall perform all 
reasonable duties related to this act as financial agents of the 
Federal Government;
  Four, in order to provide the Secretary with the flexibility to 
manage troubled assets in a manner designed to minimize cost to 
taxpayers, establishing vehicles that are authorized subject to 
supervision by the Secretary to purchase, hold, and sell troubled 
assets, issue obligations;
  Five, issuing such regulations and other guidance as may be necessary 
or appropriate to define terms or carry out the authority or the 
purposes of this act.
  Holy cow. What a blank check the Secretary of the Treasury received. 
When President Obama nominated Timothy Geithner to be Secretary of the 
Treasury, even though he signed and certified he would pay the taxes 
that were designated 4 years in a row and he couldn't bring himself to 
actually pay those, he is in charge. We were told at the time, Yes, but 
he worked so closely with Paulson on the bailout that he knows what 
needs to be done and he will be able to continue the same thing. Some 
of us said, That's a reason not to confirm the guy. Good grief. But he 
has all this power.
  Well, is it any wonder that the firm that donated four-to-one to 
President Obama and his party had the biggest profit year in their 
history last year? That's right. Goldman Sachs, while the rest of 
America has been hurting and struggling, trying to get back on its 
feet, Goldman Sachs is on its feet and made a bigger profit than ever, 
which brings me back to this.
  So I have been trying to look for things to see, well, they had the 
biggest profit year in history. Could that be because the Federal 
Government is paying them all this taxpayer money to do the things that 
the Federal Government told America we will do, but actually they 
farmed it out and paying no telling how much money to Goldman Sachs to 
do this stuff?
  Well, I did find one contract here--this amended and restated 
investment management agreement between the Federal Reserve Bank of New 
York and Goldman Sachs Asset Management. The first whereas is: Whereas, 
the Open Market Committee has approved the purchase by the System Open 
Market Account of Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), 
the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), and 
Government National Mortgage Association (Ginnie Mae). So they approved 
this deal, and in the first paragraph it points out that this is 
between the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Goldman Sachs Asset 
Management, LP, designated as manager.
  Then you go through and find out they're appointed to manage, 
supervise, direct the investment portion and appointed as the Federal 
Reserve Bank of New York's agent in fact. It's just amazing what all 
power they're given on behalf of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. 
It does point out that they're going to get some nice fees here.
  It says that this agent here, this manager, can hire firms to help 
them carry out their duties. But you have to look at attachment C to 
see who on exhibit C is authorized to act on behalf of this manager, 
Goldman Sachs Management, LP. So you flip over and you find exhibit C 
to this agreement. Well, my goodness, there's Goldman Sachs & Company 
is authorized counterparty to act on behalf of Goldman Sachs Asset 
Management, LP. Isn't that wonderful. Because they probably know each 
other. Well, doesn't that work out well?
  Those were good investments they made in this last election, and yet 
people still continue to come to this floor and talk about how 
Republicans are in the pocket of Wall Street, even though the Democrats 
received four-to-one over the amount that the Republicans got.
  Well, I know there are people in this body--it doesn't matter what 
kind of

[[Page 7464]]

contributions they got--they're going to vote what is appropriate under 
their conscience. Unfortunately, we've got groups on Wall Street that 
are awfully powerful in their persuasiveness and convincing people that 
giving Goldman Sachs their biggest profit year in the Nation's history, 
in their history, is the thing that needs to be done. That's the kind 
of stuff we're talking about. And Republicans are getting blamed for 
this, for trying to stand in the way of more monopolies on Wall Street.
  And if you look at the bailout of the automotive industry with TARP 
funds--and the truth is, I signed on to all those letters where we said 
we never intended for TARP to be used to bailout the automotive 
industry. I signed on to those because I agreed that was not the 
intent. The trouble is I read the bill, and so I knew that it could be 
used for whatever the Secretary of the Treasury wanted to use it for, 
basically. Incredible power given under that bill. And now we're going 
to follow that up with this new financial deform bill, this new bailout 
bill.
  That's why you've seen Wall Street firms sign on to this business of 
taking out the $50 billion bailout fund. That's been done in the last 
few days. Why would the Wall Street firms sign on to that? Well, if you 
look at the bill, you find out why. They've still got the potential to 
be named as systemic risk by the Systemic Risk Council, Mr. Bernanke 
leading, and get too-big-to-fail status.
  And I heard my friends. I couldn't have agreed more when they said we 
have got to stop this business of creating too big to fail. AIG should 
have been allowed to file bankruptcy. That's what the bankruptcy laws 
were for. They should have been allowed an opportunity to reorganize. 
Goldman Sachs should have been given a chance to reorganize under the 
bankruptcy laws, not the way they were perverted and destroyed and 
turned upside down with regard to the automotive industry, but followed 
the way they're supposed to be.
  It didn't happen with the automotive industry, and it didn't happen 
on Wall Street, as it should have. The firms should have been allowed 
to go through and try to reorganize. The pain would have been so much 
more quickly over than when we exacerbate it. But for folks to come in 
and say, I want to stop this too-big-to-fail business, that's why we've 
got to pass this bill. They've got to read the bill. It's in there. 
It's still going to allow that to be going on. It's got to stop. It's 
in the bill.
  So you wonder why you have Republicans standing in the way of the 
financial deform bill. Well, take out the Systemic Risk Council, take 
out the too-big-to-fail designation, take out the bailout for firms 
without going through regular bankruptcy proceedings. Take that out. 
The automotive industry should have showed us that this is not what you 
do. You don't turn the law and the Constitution upside down.
  People might wonder, Well, how could that have happened? You've got 
Congress, the executive branch, and you've got the judiciary. These are 
supposed to be checks and balances. But it didn't happen. The checks 
and balances didn't work. So you had an auto task force that was 
appointed by the President. And then the auto task force met in secret 
and refused to come up here and tell Congress exactly what was going on 
in those meetings. They said later, Well, we didn't really pick which 
dealerships would go out of business. We just told them, basically, how 
many had to go out of business. Why? Why was it their job?
  When a firm, a company, an industry goes through bankruptcy, an 
effort at reorganization, you have to have a plan. And the debtor can 
propose the plan and you can have creditors come in and propose plans. 
You have secured creditors that come in and they get first choice. 
That's the law. That's the law as allowed under the Constitution.
  We had an auto task force that put together this plan, and they said, 
No, we're turning the law upside down. We don't care what the law says. 
So we're going to take the secured creditors and we're going to give 
them pennies on the dollar for their secured claims, despite the law 
saying they get first shot, and unsecured creditors may get little or 
nothing. They took the unions and said, You know what? You're unsecured 
under the law. You may get little or nothing. And we made them like 
secured creditors, the auto task force did, so they own a big hunk of 
the company, just like the Federal Government does.
  You say, Well, how could that be? Well, bankruptcy judges don't sit 
for life terms. They depend on the good graces of others to appoint 
them so they can continue to be bankruptcy judges. And many of them 
aspire to be district judges, where they have lifetime appointments. 
Who makes lifetime appointments of Federal judges? The President does. 
So if you're a bankruptcy and you want to one day be a Federal district 
judge with a lifetime appointment and somebody from the White House 
says, Here, sign this. It will save you months of hearings, even though 
the law requires them, and it does kind of turn the Constitution upside 
down, but just sign here. Things will be good for you in the future. 
Well, that remains to be seen. But it sure wasn't good for the country.
  Despite the head of GM going on TV and saying, We paid back our 
loans, with interest, ahead of time, I know everybody else in America 
who has loans would love to have taxpayers loan you money and then take 
taxpayer money to repay the loans. But to some of us, that doesn't 
really feel like a clean payback of this little area because we still 
own a big interest. You hadn't paid back the Federal Government for all 
that was put in there to save this so-called company.

                              {time}  1800

  Ruth Bader Ginsburg, bless her soul, she put a 24-hour hold on one 
deal and it gave some of us hope that, okay, Congress completely failed 
in its duty as a check and balance on the abuse of power from the 
executive branch, but maybe the judiciary, that third check and 
balance, they're coming through. Thank goodness Justice Ginsburg did 
that. But then, apparently, the Justices were persuaded that if you 
extend this stay more than 24 hours the deal will be gone and this will 
all go away and everybody will lose their job. You can't extend the 
stay.
  And I'm betting there are Justices who are now saying we should never 
have allowed them to talk us into just allowing them to turn the law 
and the Constitution upside down just because maybe this deal with Fiat 
might not go through. Fiat had no business owning the American company 
unless they could do it properly, without turning our laws upside down. 
So the third check and balance went away, and nothing protected the 
Constitution, nothing protected the laws as they were passed. It's got 
to stop. It's got to stop.
  And yet we see a bill brought before the House and Senate and, lo and 
behold, the Federal Government is going to take over all student loans. 
We're taking over the student loan business. Well, I am so grateful 
that my youngest daughter is graduating within the next 2 weeks. We had 
to do student loans to do it. My wife and I cashed out all our assets 
except our home in order to run for Congress, so we had to use student 
loans to get our girls through college. And to think that anybody in 
this country might have to be beholden to whoever is in the executive 
branch, whichever political party is controlling the executive branch 
is who we have to hope and pray will be kind enough to extend a student 
loan to us in the future? Do Democrats really want to have to depend on 
Republicans for their student loans based on who is in the White House? 
Should Republicans have to rely on who is running the executive branch 
in hopes that their kids will get student loans? It's the wrong way to 
go.
  And now with the Federal Government having taken over Freddie and 
Fannie, we've taken over such a big part of the housing, the home 
mortgages, does either party or independents or tea party or 
progressive liberal party, do you want to be beholden to another 
political party in power in order for you to get a home loan or a 
student loan? This is where we've come. It's got to stop.

[[Page 7465]]

  I know that in the minority we're a voice crying in the wilderness, 
but it's got to stop. There are people on the other side of the aisle 
that know that, who say this. And to my friends, Mr. Speaker, I would 
hope that they would all go back and read these bills, particularly the 
``financial deform bill,'' and find out that it is not as the talking 
points have represented. It does create the too-big-to-fail problem, 
and it's got to stop. I hope we will have some Democratic friends who 
will help us. It's tragic.
  I was in a Bible study with a hero of mine, Chuck Colson, a little 
over 1 year ago. He pointed out that this society is resting on three 
legs: one is morality, one is economic stability, and one is liberty. 
And throughout history, as long as you had morality, you could have 
economic stability. But when you lose morality, it always leads to 
economic chaos. You have too many Madoffs out there that think it's 
okay to just live high and wild lives off other people's money that 
they've stolen. Then you have people get elected that think some people 
have made too much money, so I want to steal their money. But since I'm 
in power, I can pass laws that allow me to take their money and spend 
it the way I want and it won't be called stealing because we'll 
legalize the stealing because we have the power. And, yes, the power 
resides in this Congress to legalize stealing of people's money. The 
power rests here, but the moral authority does not.
  And when I hear friends say, well, Christians ought to be helping 
those who can't help themselves, helping the widows and orphans, Jesus 
did talk about those things, Even as you have done to the least of 
these, my children, you have done to me. And we should be doing those 
individually. But He never said use and abuse your taxing authority to 
legalize theft of other people's money so you can give to your favorite 
charity. He was saying, you do it yourself with what you have. You do 
it. You help individually. Don't go corrupt a governmental system that 
was put in power, as Romans 13 talks about, If you do evil, be afraid, 
because God doesn't give the government the sword in vain. The 
government is not supposed to become a part of doing immoral acts; it's 
supposed to protect those entrusted to its care, and we've gotten too 
far away from that.
  During the revolution, so many were heard to quote Voltaire--some say 
he said it, some said he didn't, but he was quoted as saying, I 
disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right 
to say it.'' So many of us heard that, learned that in school. What a 
noble, moral concept: I disagree with what you say, but I will defend 
to the death your right to say it, even though it offends me. And look 
how far we've come.
  To some of us who look at the Ten Commandments and say, you know 
what? Conduct outside of those, all of us are going to break the 
commandments because no one--but I believe one--is perfect, but that 
offends. But people here have the right to, in some cases, lie, in some 
cases commit adultery, in some cases some of these things are illegal, 
but that has been changing. And we've changed this society from one in 
which the Founders said, I disagree with what you say, but I will 
defend to the death your right to say it, and we've turned it into one 
where what you say offends me, and not only am I not going to defend to 
the death your right to say it, I'm going to force you out of your job, 
I'm going to do everything I can to cause you to lose all of your 
assets, I am going to do all I can to make your life nothing but misery 
from now on. How did we get so far from the founding that we would want 
to destroy people's lives because what they have said offends?
  When the Pilgrims came over, when so many of the groups that came 
over to what they called the New World, they were fleeing from the kind 
of persecution that has now started. This was a National Day of Prayer, 
and yet we had Franklin Graham--what a great, great man--he was 
uninvited from speaking to our military. We had Tony Perkins not long 
ago uninvited from speaking to the military at Andrews Air Force base 
even though he served this country's uniformed military services for 6 
years because there were some who said in the administration we 
disagree with what you say and we're going to ruin you and try to do 
all we can to keep you from speaking.
  The military is fighting for people's right to say what they want, 
and yet we're denying people the right to come speak to the military 
while they're fighting and dying for the right to speak freely under 
the First Amendment? How did that ever happen?
  From 1800 to 1860, and again intermittently until 1880, there were 
church services held right down the hall, nondenominational Christian 
church services. I was asked earlier by a CNN reporter, how do you 
reconcile the separation of church and state with a group reading 
through the entire Bible in 5 days over here at the west side of the 
Capitol? Well, I reconcile it because I know where the phrase 
``separation of church and state'' came from. It came from Thomas 
Jefferson in his letter to the Danbury Baptists.
  There was nothing about preventing people from having church or 
having religion or praying in Jesus' name, or doing any of those 
things, or speaking to the military. To the exact contrary. Thomas 
Jefferson used to ride down Pennsylvania, according to CRS, most of the 
time--the Congressional Research Service, they've authenticated this--
most of the time when he came to the church service every Sunday here 
in the Capitol he liked to ride his horse down here, down Pennsylvania. 
He's the one that codified the phrase ``separation of church and 
state'' because it's not in the Constitution. It's so unfortunate that 
so many of our judges over the years have been so poorly educated about 
our history.
  And then you've got James Madison as President who came to church 
most every Sunday he was in Washington here in the Capitol, in the 
House of Representatives, but according to CRS, he was different from 
Jefferson. Jefferson liked to ride a horse and usually Madison liked to 
ride in a coach drawn by four horses to come to church in the Capitol. 
Jefferson--who coined the phrase ``separation of church and state''--
sometimes brought the Marine band to play hymns for the 
nondenominational Christian worship service here in the Capitol.
  The Constitution's First Amendment was never about discriminating 
against Christianity as this administration has done by uninviting 
people to speak to the military who are fighting and dying for the very 
beliefs that the people were denied the right to come talk to them 
about. And yet we have people who are so politically correct they're 
afraid to say that a guy who makes very clear about what he screams 
before he shoots these other servicemembers, that this is an act of a 
crazed jihadist, Islamic jihadist.
  Thank God that the vast majority of Muslims are not jihadists of that 
type, but you need to recognize the ones that are and that they're out 
there and they want to destroy our way of life. And you can speak to 
moderate Muslims--many of them are afraid to speak out openly because 
they've become targets--but you speak to moderate Muslims, they know. 
They're some of the first to be killed when the crazed jihadists take 
over. They don't like moderate Muslims.
  But the Nation was founded on principles such that the church, the 
Christian church, was at the heart the Declaration of Independence. 
Over one-third of those who signed the Declaration of Independence were 
not just Christians, they were ordained Christian ministers, had 
churches. And the church was behind the effort to abolish slavery 
because they, just like John Quincy Adams, knew it was so wrong. And as 
Adams, for about a year and a half, took a young, tall, slender, not 
very handsome man under his wing down the hall, as Christians, they 
became so close in that short time, John Quincy Adams affected him so 
he knew as a Christian that slavery had to end because we could not 
continue to be blessed by God if we were treating brothers and sisters 
by putting them in chains and bondage.
  And he preached that sermon over and over and over just down the 
hall. And the churches were preaching--

[[Page 7466]]

some weren't, but many were--that was the heart of that movement. And 
what was Martin Luther King, Jr.? Dr. King was an ordained Christian 
minister. The church has been behind the great movements here in 
America, and now we're discriminating against it? We're saying what you 
believe in a Christian church so offends us, not only are we not going 
to fight to the death for your right to believe what you believe and 
say what you want to say, we're going to destroy you and keep you from 
doing anything publicly that you want to do in observing your religion. 
How did we go so wrong?

                              {time}  1815

  How did we go so wrong? Abraham Lincoln struggled with this terrible 
war that was going on because he believed in a just God, and yet this 
thing was going on and so many brothers and sisters were dying and it 
was a terrible thing. And that is why he said in his second inaugural, 
How do you reconcile this? He said, Both read the same Bible and pray 
to the same God, and each invokes his aid against the other. But he 
goes on and he says, If we shall suppose that American slavery, and you 
might substitute in there abortion, American abortion, abortion is one 
of those offenses of which, in the providence of God must needs come 
but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to 
remove and that He gives to the North and South this terrible war as 
the woe due to those by whom the offense came. Shall we discern therein 
any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a 
living God always ascribe to Him. Fondly do we hope, fervently do we 
pray, said the President, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily 
pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all of the wealth 
piled up by the bondsman's 250 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk 
and every drop of blood drawn by the lash, or by the abortion doctor's 
hand, as was said 3,000 years ago, so must still be said today, Lincoln 
said, the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether, as 
he quoted scripture.
  We are told it may not be appropriate for the military to hear from 
somebody who believes the things that Jesus taught. So you have Tony 
Perkins cancelled. You have Franklin Graham cancelled because they 
believe the things Jesus taught. You have others who we have been 
hearing about the last couple of days who have been uninvited to speak 
to military. And yet I was given by my aunt a Bible that was given to 
an uncle in World War II. It has this metal front, May the Lord be with 
you. And inside on the first page, it says at the top: The White House, 
Washington. As Commander in Chief, I take pleasure in commending the 
reading of the Bible. That is signed by Franklin D. Roosevelt.
  We all need to pray that God will continue to bless America.

                          ____________________