Jim Saxton: “If I thought that the $18 billion which is being asked for would provide a benefit to the people of this country and to…”

“If I thought that the $18 billion which is being asked for would provide a benefit to the people of this country and to the people of Asia, I would be the first one out front voting for it. The fact of the matter is that the Joint Economic Committee and others have been studying this issue since last summer, since this request came in, and that is simply not true. It is not true for a number of reasons. The gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus) talked about the secret club that surrounds the IMF. We cannot find out what they do, why they do it, the results of the studies on what they have done, any of that. That is all secret. Secondly, and more importantly, the average loan rate is 4.7 percent. Let me ask you a question, Mr. Speaker. If you were a businessman and the IMF came along and said, if you make risky investments, which the foreign countries and institutions did, and you fail, which they did, I will give you a loan of 4.5 percent, how would that make your decision making, understanding that we have two criteria in making investments, one is to make a profit and the other is how much risk we have to involve when we do it? Obviously, a low interest rate bailout loan on a policy of the organization that does it on a global basis is going to have a deleterious, negative effect on the kinds of investment decisions that are made.”