Barney Frank: “Mr. Chairman, the parliamentary situation must be understood. Last year, when we responded to the urgent pleas of the…”

“Mr. Chairman, the parliamentary situation must be understood. Last year, when we responded to the urgent pleas of the Bush administration to authorize the $700 billion deployment of Federal funds to unstick the credit markets, we resisted their insistence that all the money be made available rapidly, and at least said that they would have the right to spend the first half, but after having spent the first half, would have to notify Congress of any intent to spend the second half, and that we would have 15 days in which to consider, under expedited procedures, resolutions to disapprove that. As the Bush administration began to administer this program, many of us became very unhappy, in particular, we felt that they had repudiated commitments they had given to us to use a significant part of the fund to diminish foreclosures. We also thought it was a mistake to provide infusions of capital to banks without any requirements as to what was done with that capital.”