On the recordApril 28, 2010
I thank the gentleman from Iowa for laying out the history of where we are today in terms of the financial problem. Really, the concern that I have on the bill that is being debated over on the Senate side right now is that it seems that this bill effectively wants to institutionalize the very bad government interventionist policies that got us to the point at which we are now. Here are just a couple of things that this bill will do over on the Senate side: Number one, it makes bailouts permanent. It's as though we had bailout 1.0, which no one really liked. It was a $700 billion bailout. I know Congressman King and I both voted against the original $700 billion bailout, but it would institutionalize and make permanent the bailouts. This is something that is not generally known: With the first bailout--and it was under President Bush, unfortunately, that the first bailout was passed--the President had to come to Congress and ask us for our permission for the $700 billion fund to be created. Now, remember, this never had happened in the history of the United States whereby the Secretary of the Treasury was given a blank check for $700 billion. The Treasury Secretary virtually was able to do whatever he wanted to do with that $700 billion, and he had, effectively, no oversight from Congress. He got a blank check for $700 billion.
