[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 157 (2011), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 14955]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      IMF GREECE BAILOUT STRATEGY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Hartzler). Under the Speaker's 
announced policy of January 5, 2011, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. 
Burton) is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority 
leader.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Madam Speaker, this year we are going to go 
$1.6 trillion in debt. Most people can't comprehend $1.6 trillion. It's 
a lot of money. The national debt, we just found out recently, is going 
up to $15.1 trillion.
  The reason I bring that up today, Madam Speaker, is because we've got 
terrible problems that we're facing here at home, and there are 
terrible problems that are being faced in Europe. As a matter of fact, 
I was in Greece last week, and they're cutting salaries in Greece by 40 
percent. They're cutting retirement benefits by 40 percent. They're 
cutting health benefits by a large amount, and they're raising taxes 
because that country is a socialistic country and it's about to go 
completely bankrupt. In addition to that, Italy has the same kind of 
problems, Spain has the same kinds of problems, Portugal has the same 
kinds of problems, and Ireland is suffering from similar problems.
  Now, the reason I bring that up is because the United States is part 
of what they call the International Monetary Fund. Most Americans don't 
know, Madam Speaker, that we put 18 percent of the money in the 
International Monetary Fund, into that fund to deal with world 
financial problems.
  Now, the International Monetary Fund, according to their European 
Department Director Antonio Borges, stated that ``the IMF would 
definitely participate in a second bailout package for Greece.'' Now, 
that could be up to 200 billion euros, 200 billion euros; and when you 
talk about American dollars, that's about $280 billion.
  The United States would be responsible for 36 billion of those 
dollars. That's American taxpayers' dollars that would be going to 
Europe to deal with the problems that Italy, Spain, Greece, and those 
other countries face.
  But in addition to that, there was a recent announcement by the IMF 
that it was expanding its ``bailout firepower'' to $1.3 trillion, and 
there is a potential that the International Monetary Fund could create 
what they call a ``special purpose vehicle'' to buy the embattled bonds 
of failing European countries like Greece, Spain, and Italy. When you 
boil all that down, it means the United States could buy a great deal 
of the $1.3 trillion in bonds that would be purchased to keep those 
countries afloat.
  Now, the IMF is not the primary vehicle of the Greek bailout. If they 
can't use that, they can use the Federal Reserve Board, the Fed, which 
has the authority to provide foreign central banks with an unlimited 
amount of dollars for an equivalent amount of currency.
  On September 11 of this year, September 11, 2011, this year, the Fed 
did just this. It swapped American dollars for euros in order to 
provide the European Central Bank with liquidity to calm capital 
markets. Now, I don't think I need to go into a great deal more detail 
other than to say the United States is about to be involved in bailing 
out Europe.
  We do not have the money.
  As I said at the beginning of my remarks, we're going to be $1.6 
trillion short this year. We've got a $15.1 trillion national debt, and 
it's going up very rapidly.
  If the Fed, our Treasury Department, and the White House decide it's 
going to try to bail out Europe, these countries that are about to go 
belly up, it's going to cause even more economic problems in America. 
We have 9.1 percent unemployment right now, and can you imagine, Madam 
Speaker, what would happen if we started trying to bail out Europe as 
well? We cannot and we must not do that.
  If I were talking to the President tonight, Madam Speaker, I would 
say, Mr. President, let's deal with the problems we have here at home. 
Let's don't take on more responsibilities that are not of our doing. We 
should not try to prop up governments that have been socialistic for a 
long, long time to the point where they have to cut salaries by 40 
percent in order to try to keep their country afloat.
  That's a problem they created. We have enough problems here at home, 
and we shouldn't be using American taxpayers' dollars to try to bail 
out European countries that have gone down the wrong path.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.

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