Floor Speech on the Economic Crisis
Mr. McCOTTER. I thank the gentleman from New Jersey for yielding. I also wish to take this moment to thank him for his strength of character and his depth of intellect and leadership on this issue.
It has been said if you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there. Unfortunately, we find ourselves in such a situation, as America finds itself amidst a potential economic meltdown of its financial sector.
Right now, the U.S. Congress is being asked to vote upon the Paulson-Bush-Obama-McConnell-Pelosi-Reid plan. I myself will be up front and say I think it is a disastrous policy that House Republicans should continue to resist. What we are asking Americans to do, quite simply, is to send money to the very people who caused this problem and expect them to fix it.
If I can put this in the simplest terms that even I could understand, we have a liquidity crisis in our financial markets. That means that private investors are standing on the sidelines. They do not want to put their money into purchasing toxic assets. What they are now doing is asking Congress to put your money into purchasing toxic assets, and, if you do not, then these private investors have promised to wreak havoc upon your personal savings, upon your credit ratings, upon your financial existence. And for what sin? For not giving them $700 billion to fix the problem that they caused.
House Republicans have stood against this. We have consistently tried to keep ahead of the crisis atmosphere, and we have succeeded. What we instead offered is a responsible position that protects the taxpayers, that puts private recapitalization first, so that Wall Street can bail itself out of its mess before going to the taxpayers, and putting an appropriate backstop in place.
Now, we have been reviled for our principled opposition to what we believe is an extortion of taxpayers' precious resources. For this we have been condemned in the liberal media. For this we have been condemned by the majority Democratic Party in this House. We have been condemned by the Democratic majority in the Senate. We have been condemned by our own Republican President and his Secretary of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board Chairman.
In fact, I think we have recently reached the height of the disapprobation heaped upon us when earlier the Speaker of the House, in response to our refusal to spend $700 billion of taxpayer money on this problem, we were labeled ``unpatriotic.'' I suppose this should not surprise us the least bit. We had earlier heard from the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Senator Biden, that Republicans, because we would not raise your taxes, were also unpatriotic.
Now, there has been some debate whether there is a new Democratic Party in America. If I may link these two statements to disprove that notion, according to Senator Biden and Speaker Pelosi, if you do not support raising the American people's taxes and spending $700 billion of it on Wall Street, you are unpatriotic.
I disagree with this assessment, and I trust that the American people do. In fact, in many ways it tends to point out the politics that are being played here. The reality is, as has been shown so often in the past, the Republican Party in Congress is the minority party. In the House of Representatives especially, the minority has acute pangs, because we do not have the power to obstruct a single thing the majority wants to get done. Let me draw a quick comparison.
When we were debating increasing American energy production to help our constituents and ease their pain at the pump by increasing supply, we were denied a bipartisan vote on an all-of-the-above energy strategy. Today, in the debate to bail out Wall Street, we see the Speaker demanding a bipartisan vote to bail them out.
The dichotomy proves the point that if this Democratic majority truly believes, as does their Speaker and Senator Obama and others, in President Bush's plan, yes, I know that sounds dysfunctional, but these are the times in which we live, they would then take it upon themselves to do one of two things: They would run us over; or instead they would choose the prudent course, to work with us.
Today they are beginning to show signs they may work with us. But, unfortunately, the political games continue. We continue to hear now, in addition to being unpatriotic and obstructive, which is impossible as the minority party in the House, we continue to hear that if we resist an arbitrary Sunday midnight deadline, we, who cannot stop this bill from being passed, are going to cause the meltdown of the American and the global economy.
We instead as House Republicans are going to do what you sent us here to do, which is guard your money with which you have entrusted us. What we are going to do is reject arbitrary deadlines, for two very critical reasons important to the American people.
One is we will have no rush to misjudgment, whereby a bad bill is passed for the sake of meeting an artificial deadline that winds up being either passed into law or being forced into a no vote defeat in this House, the result of which could be the very economic meltdown we are trying to prevent.
The other alternative is if prudent consultation with Republicans and Democrats continue and we pass the arbitrary deadline, if investors' expectations are raised improperly and irresponsibly, if we do the right thing and take a prudent course with this legislation towards a pro-taxpayer outcome, the economic meltdown may still occur.
This is why House Republicans refuse to put a deadline on these economic negotiations, which are of critical interest to the American people, the same way we opposed putting artificial deadlines on our troops in Iraq. One is dedicated to preserving the prosperity of the American people, just as the other was dedicated to preserving the liberty of the American people by expanding it to the Iraqis.
We have failed to do so in the past in our negotiations with the Democratic Party to make it clear that we have learned our lesson. We will not legislate defeat, either of our troops or of the American taxpayer, and we will continue to stand strong in their defense.
Why is this critically important? If one looks at the lessons of history, we see critical times where decisions are made that affect future generations. This is such a time.
This is the first economic panic of the global economy. The precedent that we set as your servants in Congress will be followed for decades to come. If we are rushed into this by a market bent upon getting their billions from taxpayers, we will set a precedent that we will rue. If we take our time and have prudent, responsible progress towards a pro-taxpayer result, such as embodied in the Cantor-Ryan plan, we will have done our job, not only for the crisis of the present, but for future generations to come.
This is why today I say I have never been more proud to be a House Republican, because in many ways the more you are reviled for not abandoning the hard-working, responsible American people, for not abrogating their trust in you to protect their tax dollars and their futures, we wear it as a badge of honor, because that is precisely what we were elected to do as the party of Lincoln, as the party of Reagan.
And I have a history lesson as I conclude for the party of Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson stood tall for the working people of America in the face of every rich special interest that this Nation had. When they demanded a Bank of the United States and got a servile Congress to pass it for them, he vetoed it, not once but twice, because he knew that the best way America could grow was from families, communities and neighborhoods, not from a centralized Bank of the United States.
Today we face a centralized shadow bank of the United States on Wall Street, and this is precisely the forces that we are standing up to for the responsible, hard-working people of America. And when Andrew Jackson for the second time vetoed a charter for the Bank of the United States, he said something that I would ask every Democrat in this Chamber to remember: ``There are no necessary evils in government.''
So that when this Democratic majority brings a bill to the floor, make sure that you believe in it; because if you do not believe in it and you do not vote for it, or you do, do not go home and tell your constituents that this was a necessary evil to get through this time. And we as Republicans on our part will always remember the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson: ``If one man plant himself upon his convictions and then abide, the whole huge world will come around to him.''
We will stand our ground, backed by principle and the American people, and we will do our duty.
I yield back to the gentleman from New Jersey.
It has been said if you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there. Unfortunately, we find ourselves in such a situation, as America finds itself amidst a potential economic meltdown of its financial sector.
Right now, the U.S. Congress is being asked to vote upon the Paulson-Bush-Obama-McConnell-Pelosi-Reid plan. I myself will be up front and say I think it is a disastrous policy that House Republicans should continue to resist. What we are asking Americans to do, quite simply, is to send money to the very people who caused this problem and expect them to fix it.
If I can put this in the simplest terms that even I could understand, we have a liquidity crisis in our financial markets. That means that private investors are standing on the sidelines. They do not want to put their money into purchasing toxic assets. What they are now doing is asking Congress to put your money into purchasing toxic assets, and, if you do not, then these private investors have promised to wreak havoc upon your personal savings, upon your credit ratings, upon your financial existence. And for what sin? For not giving them $700 billion to fix the problem that they caused.
House Republicans have stood against this. We have consistently tried to keep ahead of the crisis atmosphere, and we have succeeded. What we instead offered is a responsible position that protects the taxpayers, that puts private recapitalization first, so that Wall Street can bail itself out of its mess before going to the taxpayers, and putting an appropriate backstop in place.
Now, we have been reviled for our principled opposition to what we believe is an extortion of taxpayers' precious resources. For this we have been condemned in the liberal media. For this we have been condemned by the majority Democratic Party in this House. We have been condemned by the Democratic majority in the Senate. We have been condemned by our own Republican President and his Secretary of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board Chairman.
In fact, I think we have recently reached the height of the disapprobation heaped upon us when earlier the Speaker of the House, in response to our refusal to spend $700 billion of taxpayer money on this problem, we were labeled ``unpatriotic.'' I suppose this should not surprise us the least bit. We had earlier heard from the Democratic vice presidential nominee, Senator Biden, that Republicans, because we would not raise your taxes, were also unpatriotic.
Now, there has been some debate whether there is a new Democratic Party in America. If I may link these two statements to disprove that notion, according to Senator Biden and Speaker Pelosi, if you do not support raising the American people's taxes and spending $700 billion of it on Wall Street, you are unpatriotic.
I disagree with this assessment, and I trust that the American people do. In fact, in many ways it tends to point out the politics that are being played here. The reality is, as has been shown so often in the past, the Republican Party in Congress is the minority party. In the House of Representatives especially, the minority has acute pangs, because we do not have the power to obstruct a single thing the majority wants to get done. Let me draw a quick comparison.
When we were debating increasing American energy production to help our constituents and ease their pain at the pump by increasing supply, we were denied a bipartisan vote on an all-of-the-above energy strategy. Today, in the debate to bail out Wall Street, we see the Speaker demanding a bipartisan vote to bail them out.
The dichotomy proves the point that if this Democratic majority truly believes, as does their Speaker and Senator Obama and others, in President Bush's plan, yes, I know that sounds dysfunctional, but these are the times in which we live, they would then take it upon themselves to do one of two things: They would run us over; or instead they would choose the prudent course, to work with us.
Today they are beginning to show signs they may work with us. But, unfortunately, the political games continue. We continue to hear now, in addition to being unpatriotic and obstructive, which is impossible as the minority party in the House, we continue to hear that if we resist an arbitrary Sunday midnight deadline, we, who cannot stop this bill from being passed, are going to cause the meltdown of the American and the global economy.
We instead as House Republicans are going to do what you sent us here to do, which is guard your money with which you have entrusted us. What we are going to do is reject arbitrary deadlines, for two very critical reasons important to the American people.
One is we will have no rush to misjudgment, whereby a bad bill is passed for the sake of meeting an artificial deadline that winds up being either passed into law or being forced into a no vote defeat in this House, the result of which could be the very economic meltdown we are trying to prevent.
The other alternative is if prudent consultation with Republicans and Democrats continue and we pass the arbitrary deadline, if investors' expectations are raised improperly and irresponsibly, if we do the right thing and take a prudent course with this legislation towards a pro-taxpayer outcome, the economic meltdown may still occur.
This is why House Republicans refuse to put a deadline on these economic negotiations, which are of critical interest to the American people, the same way we opposed putting artificial deadlines on our troops in Iraq. One is dedicated to preserving the prosperity of the American people, just as the other was dedicated to preserving the liberty of the American people by expanding it to the Iraqis.
We have failed to do so in the past in our negotiations with the Democratic Party to make it clear that we have learned our lesson. We will not legislate defeat, either of our troops or of the American taxpayer, and we will continue to stand strong in their defense.
Why is this critically important? If one looks at the lessons of history, we see critical times where decisions are made that affect future generations. This is such a time.
This is the first economic panic of the global economy. The precedent that we set as your servants in Congress will be followed for decades to come. If we are rushed into this by a market bent upon getting their billions from taxpayers, we will set a precedent that we will rue. If we take our time and have prudent, responsible progress towards a pro-taxpayer result, such as embodied in the Cantor-Ryan plan, we will have done our job, not only for the crisis of the present, but for future generations to come.
This is why today I say I have never been more proud to be a House Republican, because in many ways the more you are reviled for not abandoning the hard-working, responsible American people, for not abrogating their trust in you to protect their tax dollars and their futures, we wear it as a badge of honor, because that is precisely what we were elected to do as the party of Lincoln, as the party of Reagan.
And I have a history lesson as I conclude for the party of Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson stood tall for the working people of America in the face of every rich special interest that this Nation had. When they demanded a Bank of the United States and got a servile Congress to pass it for them, he vetoed it, not once but twice, because he knew that the best way America could grow was from families, communities and neighborhoods, not from a centralized Bank of the United States.
Today we face a centralized shadow bank of the United States on Wall Street, and this is precisely the forces that we are standing up to for the responsible, hard-working people of America. And when Andrew Jackson for the second time vetoed a charter for the Bank of the United States, he said something that I would ask every Democrat in this Chamber to remember: ``There are no necessary evils in government.''
So that when this Democratic majority brings a bill to the floor, make sure that you believe in it; because if you do not believe in it and you do not vote for it, or you do, do not go home and tell your constituents that this was a necessary evil to get through this time. And we as Republicans on our part will always remember the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson: ``If one man plant himself upon his convictions and then abide, the whole huge world will come around to him.''
We will stand our ground, backed by principle and the American people, and we will do our duty.
I yield back to the gentleman from New Jersey.
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