Jim Bunning: “our economy is ailing--everybody knows that--and the symptoms are a sharp drop in consumer spending and a large rise in…”

“our economy is ailing--everybody knows that--and the symptoms are a sharp drop in consumer spending and a large rise in unemployment. As many of my colleagues have already observed, this bill treats the symptoms only and it does it so ineffectively. There are some Democrats, even in the White House, who agree with this. Just the other day, one House Democrat said his leadership ``does not care'' what is in the bill; ``they just want to pass it and they want it to be unanimous.'' They don't care. That is just shameful. The unemployment statistics we are seeing are just staggering. Never in our history have we seen job cuts at the rate and severity we are seeing today: over 500,000 losses per month for the last 5 months. Over 600,000 in losses were reported just last Tuesday. This bill really does very little to help businesses keep people employed. It gives the poorest Americans $500 in cash and the prospect of a government job on a construction site, but it does not get to the heart of the problem in the private sector. It is our responsibility on behalf of every child who will pay for this massive amount of spending in this bill to get the solution right, and we can do better, much better. One of the best economists in this country--one who predicted this crisis in advance--said recently that he believes most U.S. banks are insolvent. Their equity has been wiped out due to the massive leveraged bets related to housing.”