Ted Poe: “Mr. Speaker, we are a bailout Nation, the Nation of handouts, the Nation of gimmees. The entitlement mentality has swept…”

“Mr. Speaker, we are a bailout Nation, the Nation of handouts, the Nation of gimmees. The entitlement mentality has swept this country, especially last year, and it has done so, more importantly, with the elites, like the banks who think they are entitled to somebody else's money, taxpayer money. The banks have been given $350 billion and they're back for more, yet they refuse to tell us what they did with the first $350 billion, even though we wanted them to. All of us have gone to a bank to get a loan. First we fill out all that paperwork and sign our life away, but they ask us one question, what are you going to spend the money on? And then they may or may not give us a loan. But no such deal when we're dealing with banks and the people are loaning banks money. They just show up with their hand out, want the money, and refuse to tell us what they're going to do with the money or what they did with the money. In this decade alone, Federal Government spending has grown 57 percent, $1.2 trillion, and the American taxpayers, of course, pay the bill.”