Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Will the gentlewoman let me yield 30 seconds?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. If the gentleman would yield, the question that the majority leader asked was, if you take the position that unless we know the Senate is going to do something, we shouldn't do it, then we wouldn't be debating this. Now, I agree with him, it's important for us to have a chance to express our opinion. In this case, though, unlike yesterday, we passed a bill yesterday that is still pending in the Senate and, if events change, could be brought up. Under the procedures, this bill is dead. It cannot be reconsidered because the Senate killed it. The gentlewoman points out that it is the law we passed last year that allows us to do it, but it permits us to do it. It doesn't mandate it. What we are trying to do is say to the gentlewoman we agree that it's reasonable to have this on the floor, but the logic that says we shouldn't have acted yesterday because the Senate said they're not going to do it would apply with even greater force when you're talking about doing something the Senate has already killed.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I would just say this. I certainly want them to take it up. Realistically, I don't think they will, unless the Obama administration fails to live up to the things in the bill. I believe that if the Obama administration surprises me, because I don't expect this, it doesn't go ahead with foreclosure diminution, it doesn't lend to community banks, it doesn't do better restrictions on compensation, then you will see pressure in the Senate to take it up. So there is one difference with regard to Senate action between the resolution the gentlewoman offers, as authorized, although not mandated by the bill, and where we are today. The bill we passed yesterday is pending in the Senate. They don't now intend to take it up. But, if things change, pressure would build to do it. The resolution we will be voting on today is already dead, the Senate has already killed it, and it does not allow for reconsideration. In both cases, I think it's reasonable for us to go forward. But to argue that it makes sense for us to pass a bill the Senate has already killed but not to pass a bill that will be pending in the Senate, subject to pressure, baffles me.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield myself the balance of my time. Mr. Speaker, first, I want to address this basic issue again about what the Senate is likely to do. Technically, there is no likelihood that this bill will be taken up in the Senate because it is the expedited procedure of resolution that has been killed in the Senate. The Senate could pass a bill rescinding the TARP. Having voted by 52- 42 not to pass the disapproval resolution, it seems unlikely that 42 will become 60 in the near term, but there is that possibility. But I would say this to the gentlewoman. When she said that both bills, the one we passed yesterday and this one, are as likely to be taken up, in some sense, that is true. But that makes our point. I didn't say don't do the bill yesterday. When I talked about this bill being already killed in the Senate, I wasn't saying don't do it. I welcome this debate. I was refuting the arguments from my Republican colleagues that yesterday was a waste of time. I agree that it is a good thing for us to give our views today and yesterday. I did notice in today's Washington Post that they note that the passage by a large majority in the House yesterday, we got a larger majority for this bill than the partisan breakdown. It was largely a partisan vote, but not entirely. And more Republicans supported the bill than Democrats opposed it, I think because of the power of the desire to help minimize foreclosure and get money to community banks. But my argument, she's now embracing. The fact that the Senate may or may not be able to pass a bill is no reason for us not to do something. Now I want to address an important aspect of this, and I am talking now to people in the Obama administration, to the people in the Bush administration, to the people in the financial community. We have in this country, obviously, as you have in any country, a certain degree of stratification along various lines. There are people who are at the top of the ladder in terms of economic power, in terms of influence. There's an element that would think of themselves as elite opinion. It's not a value term here, but opinion of a fairly small number of people with a great deal of power. Then there is the opinion of the great majority of Americans. I want to address now the people at the top of the economic ladder, the people in the financial institutions, and I think here I am speaking, to some extent, for almost every Member of this House. There is a dangerous and deeper split between the views of the economic elite on what should be done in the current crisis and those of the average American than I have ever seen. We heard some Members there say--the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Barrett) say, and I appreciated his saying it--that the passage of the TARP last fall helped. The Republican leader said that. I think it did. My criticism is that I don't think it helped nearly as much. But I have two criticisms. I think it helped avoid something worse. And one of the things we know as elected officials is this. Some of the hardest jobs we do are to prevent bad things from happening, and we can expect to get no credit for it. Disaster averted is nobody's political platform. That helps in economic analysis, but you can't go before your voters with what economists call the counterfactual and explain to them how things would have been worse if you hadn't acted and expect cheers if they're still pretty bad. And that is appropriate. The public should have that high demand to make of us. But while I and, I think, most people who are at that higher level of the economic ladder, economists, while most of them think it was a good thing that we passed the bill last year and that $350 billion was deployed, the American people overwhelmingly think it wasn't. And that is one of my criticisms of the Bush administration and of Secretary Paulson, a man whom I admire, with whom I am proud to have worked, with whom we accomplished a great deal in the areas of financial regulation and housing, et cetera. But here was the mistake: By not listening to public concern about the $350 billion, by refusing to follow the congressional mandate to do something about foreclosures, by indulging the arrogance of some of the banks who said, ``We will take that money and we won't tell you what we do,'' they have discredited the notion of intervention of that sort. And I think that is a mistake, because I think we are at a point where some of that intervention is still needed. Now, there are philosophical views that say the other, but there is a division. And, again, the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Barrett) very thoughtfully said, ``We averted a greater disaster by passing this.'' The Republican leader said he is glad he voted for it. I think they are both right, and I think it is important that we acknowledge that. I have two criticisms to make of the way in which the administration carried it out. One, they didn't do some of the good they could have done. And I do think they made a fundamental macro-economic mistake by not diminishing foreclosure. I believe, until you begin to diminish foreclosure, you not only deny some people some relief, but probably, more importantly, you don't get the country out of the bind that it is in, because the continued rapid deterioration in those assets is at the root of a large part of the problem. But what we also had was a degree of alienation on the part of the average American who saw banks getting money, in one case apparently using them for an acquisition of a smaller bank that was very important to the community where it existed, in Ohio. We saw bankers saying, ``I got the money. It's none of your business what we do with it.'' We saw bonuses given that shouldn't be given. I am confident that the Obama administration has learned from that. But I go beyond that. There is in this country today a very sharp divide on a number of issues, not just whether or not you intervene. Here is the problem with intervention. When you have a financial system that is in such difficulty, I think it is important to try to keep these institutions from collapsing en masse, not that we are at that point, but from not collapsing. But remember, as an institution's assets deteriorate, its capacity legally to lend, if it is a bank, deteriorates. We want to reverse that cycle. Let's not overstate it. But I think we need to intervene in this way. The public says no, because the immediate beneficiary of these interventions are people they don't like, are people who in fact made some mistakes. Now, it turns out that you can't help the whole economy in some cases without some help--you know, we talk about sort of incidental victims. These are incidental beneficiaries. This is kind of, not casualties, civilian casualties, but civilian beneficiaries. You can't get from here to there without helping some of these people. But it ought to be done in a way that reassures the average American. Part of it has to do, I believe, with the weakness of the social safety net. People who lose their health care because they lose their jobs will react particularly angrily when a financial institution is benefited. So I make this plea now to the people in the financial institutions, to people at the upper levels of economic decision-making, and they should understand that this Congress representing the people is under enormous pressure to deny them some of the things they think are necessary. By the way, not just here; in trade, in international trade. This is not a Congress that is ready to go forward with that. We had an amendment yesterday offered by the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick) that said none of the recipients of TARP funds can do customer service outsourcing. I believe that most people who are CEOs of corporations, most economists, or many economists, many of the people at the top levels of the administrations, Bush and Obama, and go on back now, probably think that is unwise economic policy, but we didn't have a roll call on it, because that is a totally irresistible impulse here. It may put us in some trouble with the WTO. We will have to deal with that. People who don't like the Myrick amendment--and I supported it. People who don't like the Myrick amendment had better understand that amendments like that will proliferate until they join us in giving the average American a better sense that he or she will benefit from this prosperity. Now, that is part of where we are today. Look, the Senate has already killed this resolution. Why are we still voting on it? Because there is a degree of anger in the American public at what they think is a very unfair system that gives benefits, unduly and disproportionately, to some of those who caused the problem, while denying health care and unemployment compensation and decent higher education for working class people. I mean, Mr. Speaker, to caution the people who are deeply involved in running this financial system in this country, work with us to alleviate this. As long as the average American thinks that a small group is getting help when they are not getting anything, then that small group pretty soon won't be getting the help. And there may be some cases when, as I said, benefiting that group is the only way to get broader benefits. That is why we did the bill yesterday, because we think it is a very important way of getting the Obama administration-- and I believe, by the way, many in the Obama administration do agree with that understanding. They will be running into pressures from the other side of the people they are dealing with in the financial community. But it is a broader political point. For those of us who think, and there are some who philosophically don't want any government intervention in the market whatsoever. They don't want a minimum wage and they don't want an injection of capital to a failing financial institution. I disagree with that as a matter of economic philosophy. I respect its intellectual integrity. That makes sense. What I disagree with is the view that says it is okay to help AIG and not worry about their wages, but criticize the wages of auto workers. It is the view of too many in the financial community that they need some direct help because that is the only way to help the economy, and I think that is often the case, but, no, you don't have unions; no, you don't have health care. As I said, there is a consistent and honorable philosophical view that says ``no'' to all of that. What I am addressing now are those in the sector that would be designated as the elite, who understand the need for an intervention of which they are the direct beneficiaries because that is the only way to help the whole economy, but then resist some of these other things. One of the things that gives me optimism about the next 2 years, Mr. Speaker, is that I believe we have in place a President and majorities in the House and the Senate who understand that there has got to be some consistency in this approach. And let me just say in closing, and I hope this resolution is defeated, because I do not think that the Obama administration should be denied the right to use tools simply because the Bush administration misused them. And that is the only issue here today, if this were to have binding effect. But we are here today because of that anger that must be alleviated, because it must be recognized as based in reality.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield the gentlewoman 1 additional minute.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Well, I yield myself 30 seconds to say I agree with the gentlewoman that this was appropriate to restrain the Bush administration. My objection is visiting the sins of the Bush administration, or the errors, on the Obama administration. I now yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland, the majority leader.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to section 2 of House Resolution 62 and as the designee of the majority leader, I have a motion at the desk.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 3 minutes to the gentlelady from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee). (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. I will be discussing the substance of this later, but I want to explain what is a somewhat complicated legal and parliamentary situation. First, I do want to note that it is a refutation of the skeptics that this process is going forward. In September, we were asked by the Bush administration's top economic appointees to pass a bill giving them the authority to deploy $700 billion to repair the credit markets, without any hindrance. I agreed with them that action had to be taken, and, in fact, even if you did not think the action was necessary, when at a time of economic trouble the two chief economic advisers to the President of the United States tell us that if you don't do something there will be problems, there are going to be problems. I don't think they self-created this. I don't think it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. But it was a self-reinforcing one. So we felt we had to act. But we were able in the negotiations to get one major concession, namely, to say that we would vote the ultimate authority for $700 billion but that after the first $350 billion had been deployed, and I don't want to say ``spent'' because most of it has been lent or invested in ways that it will come back, but we said that at that point if the administration wanted to spend the second 350, and I just misspoke when I said ``spent''--deploy it--they would have to notify Congress. Fifteen days would then be a waiting period during which the money was not available and during which time Congress would get to vote on resolutions to cancel the program. And to reassure Members that they would have a chance for those votes, procedures were drafted by the appropriate Rules Committees in both branches so that neither the House Rules Committee nor the Senate-extended debate could have interfered with this. Now, we did have one drafting error because for this to work, it would have had to have been passed by both Houses and either signed by the President or have a veto overridden. The two Chambers that drafted this, the leadership, the rules groups, did a very good job of protecting Members to make sure the bills could come to the floor. That's why we're here. But they did them in isolation. So there's a certain futility to what we are doing today because the Senate has already defeated the Senate version of this; so no matter what happens in the House today, the program goes forward. People should understand President Bush, at the request of President Obama, asked for the second $350 billion a week ago Monday. That means, I believe, next Tuesday this will be available to the Obama administration because the Senate voted down the resolution of disapproval. The House will still vote, and there will be some indication of what Members think about going forward, but it will not have binding effect. And I think that was a drafting error. It should have been that if one House defeated it, it didn't come up in the other House. But here we are. There is one other distinction to be drawn. Yesterday, the House passed a bill by a fairly large vote that said that if the second $350 billion is deployed, it should be done with the following conditions: significant money for foreclosure relief; restrictions on the money being used for acquisitions by a receiving bank of another bank; a requirement that there would be an agreement in which banks would specify what they were going to do with the money before they got it; greater restrictions on compensation; a request that the administration do some things to come to the relief of cities, other entities, small businesses; a requirement that this funding be distributed in a way that was equitable to smaller banks. We voted on that yesterday. Now, my Republican colleagues in particular had a dilemma there. A number of the things that we had in the bill yesterday are popular and indeed many of them agree with. They, I think, were reluctant to have to vote on this because on the other side, you had some of the leading conservative journals of opinion, the Wall Street Journal editorialist, a major paper from the Heritage Foundation, denouncing the notion of helping reduce foreclosures, criticizing the effort to put in community banks. And so my Republican colleagues offered a recommittal motion yesterday which would have, if it had succeeded, in essence wiped out the conditions we are seeking to impose and made yesterday's vote simply on whether or not to repeal the 350. The problem with that is that they did it in a way that really meant to avoid taking a stand on these conditions. Now, the recommittal motion was defeated. And my conviction that the recommittal motion had, as one of its goals, avoiding a vote on whether or not to be for foreclosure relief and community banks is reinforcement of the fact that unusually in a bill that many of them had criticized, when the voice vote was called in favor, they did not ask for a roll call. We had a roll call yesterday because I asked for one because I wanted to have a large majority of Members on record so that when we talk to the Obama administration, we have a large majority of Members saying do foreclosure relief, lend to community banks, go to the aid of municipalities. The Republicans wanted to avoid that vote. They didn't want to take it because they didn't want to choose between foreclosure and the Wall Street Journal or foreclosure mitigation and the Heritage Foundation. That's why they offered the recommit. I say that for this reason. There were people who voted against the recommittal motion yesterday because they did not want to dilute the impact of our insistence that this be used for foreclosure relief, for aid for smaller banks and for other important purposes, and that there be a restriction on the ability of banks to take the money and then do whatever they wanted with it. That recommittal motion was defeated, so the House did go on record by a large majority in favor of those conditions, and that will be very important as we make the Obama administration understand that. Today is a separate vote. Today we have a vote in which Members will express their opinion on whether or not the $350 billion should go forward. It is simply an expression of opinion. It's kind of a big public opinion poll for the House, because the Senate has already defeated the bill. But they are two separate issues. The vote on yesterday's recommittal motion was, in my judgment, a rejection of an effort to keep the House from speaking out strongly on the question of foreclosure relief and smaller banks. We have now spoken, as the House of Representatives, by a significant majority and said to this administration, since this is going forward now that the Senate has voted against a disapproval motion, here is what we want. Today Members simply express their opinion on whether or not they want to disapprove it. I will close by saying for me, the argument that because the Bush administration misused this means that the Obama administration should not be given the chance to do it better, proves too much. If I believed that every instrumentality of government misused by the Bush administration should be denied to the Obama administration, we would have a lot of empty, vacant office space in Washington. We could rent out the Justice Department, the State Department, EPA, HUD and a number of other agencies, because I believe that they misused many of them. TARP has no independent will. It is a set of policy choices. George Bush used them, in my judgment unwisely, although I think we were better off having even that than nothing, but that has zero to do with whether or not the Obama administration ought to have the right to do it going forward. I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield myself 30 seconds.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield the gentlewoman 1 additional minute.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I would have thought my Republican colleagues would have waited a little bit more than 28 hours to so thoroughly repudiate George Bush. What this motion says is that George Bush used the authority to deploy $350 billion ``so badly''--direct quotes--``so hastily, so haphazardly, so without a plan, that nothing will fix it.'' Basically, we are told that President Bush drove the car so recklessly that we have to junk it. That because President Bush so misused these tools, we have to deny them to a new President. Let's be very clear. The TARP has taken on in the minds of some of my colleagues on the other side an odd shape. It has become alive. It's sort of a horror movie in their minds. The TARP is this thing that has its own will. No, the TARP is not something with its own will. It's a set of policies. George Bush's administration used them badly. Not, I think, as badly as my Republican colleagues say. That is why I think I am defending them. He didn't permanently destroy this. There are a number of things that the past President did that I don't like. I was not a great fan of the Bush foreign policy. But I don't think we should repeal the State Department. I think Obama should have a chance to have a good foreign policy. So that is the first part of this. The criticisms made of the Bush administration, wholly irrelevant to what the Obama administration will do. As to the timing, the Bush administration acceded to the wish of the Obama administration to release the funds. Apparently, the Bush administration agreed with the Obama administration that delay would be a serious problem. Had the Bush administration not waited, we might have had more time. The President, to his credit, President Bush, accommodated President Obama, unlike my colleagues who now want to cut him off at the knees early on. I have another problem, Mr. Chairman. This motion today is a motion to end the program. Guess what we will vote on tomorrow? A motion to end the program. Having wasted the House's time with a blatantly nongermane rule, recommittal, they now come up with a blatantly unnecessary one because the exact vote we are having today, we will have tomorrow. And so why do they do this? Why would they ask for the same vote? They have a dilemma. Let's be very clear. Responsibility, which comes with it sometimes making decisions that can be in the short term difficult, in the minds of some--responsibility sits uneasily on the shoulders of many of my Republican colleagues, particularly the most conservative. When they had a President they were supposed to support, they had to do things that made them uncomfortable. Not all of them, but their leadership and many of them voted for the TARP. They couldn't wait for George Bush to leave town so they can throw off the shackles of responsible public policy. Now they can simply revel in their negativism. They can vote to kill the program today and tomorrow to show George Bush how much they don't like him. And what particularly is their problem? Well, one of the things many of us on this side think was the greatest single problem of the Bush administration was not doing foreclosure mitigation. The Obama administration has committed that if they get this second $350 billion, which the Senate vote means they will get, they will do foreclosure mitigation. But here is the problem of this conservative dominated Republican Party: The most recent paper from the Heritage Foundation says, don't do foreclosure mitigation; it is a waste of time and money. The Wall Street Journal editorial board, another source of great guidance for my colleagues over there, says, don't do foreclosure mitigation. They are torn. They have to put in the recommit that they can find some reason to vote for because they don't want to have to choose between the demand of a large number of Americans for foreclosure mitigation and the arguments of the Heritage Foundation and the Wall Street Journal that they shouldn't do this. So what do they do? They advance the disapproval vote from tomorrow to today because they don't want to do this. By the way, the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation also are critical of other things. The Wall Street Journal says, how dare we try to give money to community banks; how dare we talk about auto industry help or auto dealers, or loans to others in America. The Bush administration--and I give the gentleman from South Carolina, it was better that we passed it than that we didn't. But the Bush administration made several errors: They didn't put any real controls on how the money that they infused was spent; they did too little on compensation; they didn't do anything about foreclosure. President Bush agreed with President Obama that there was still a need for the money. We here want to pass a bill that instructs them to use it better. I do not think that your desire to dissociate from George Bush should lead you to cripple the Obama administration. [From the Heritage Foundation's Web Memo, Jan. 14, 2009] TARP: Frank's Bill Underscores Weaknesses of This Bailout Program (By David C. John) More is not better. Efforts by Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) of the House Financial Services Committee to ``improve'' the Treasury's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in the TARP Reform and Accountability Act of 2009 (H.R. 384) would unfortunately just make the program worse. Among other policy mistakes, it would explicitly approve the use of TARP to bail out the auto manufacturers as well as expanding the program into several other new areas. Frank hopes that with his legislation, Congress will see fit to approve TARP'S second $350 billion for use by the incoming Obama Administration. However, there is no good reason to approve the request for additional TARP funding under any foreseeable circumstances, and Frank's bill only adds more reasons for the additional funding request to be denied. H.R. 384 is a compilation of responses to congressional criticisms of the TARP program, fixes to previous attempts to address housing foreclosures, attempts to revive housing sales, and various other miscellaneous provisions. A few of those provisions are good policy moves, such as making permanent the temporary increase in FDIC and NCUA deposit insurance coverage to $250,000. Unfortunately, most of the other provisions would only make matters worse. Policy Errors in the Frank Legislation Increased Interference in Corporate Decisions: H.R. 384 authorizes the government to have an ``observer'' in the board meetings of financial institutions that have accepted TARP funds. This is a far step from pledges that any government investments through TARP funds would be passive, and it opens the way for additional political takeovers of financial institutions. Expansion of TARP into New Areas: Frank's bill not only retroactively approves the highly questionable use of TARP into bailing out GM and Chrysler; it also expands the program into consumer loans, student loans, commercial real estate, and municipal securities. The language makes it clear that TARP will be held accountable for ensuring that these types of loans are made available. This is a further step toward government micro-management of lending decisions. Even worse, the Fed has already addressed some of these problems, and there is no evidence that the situation will be improved by additional TARP programs. New Foreclosure Programs: Congress has already passed a wildly unsuccessful program to help homeowners who are facing foreclosure, and H.R. 384 attempts to both fix the earlier program and to set up another one. Last year's Hope for Homeowners program initially promised to help almost 2 million homeowners, but in operation, it has helped fewer than 500. The bill both tinkers with the existing program and promises at least $40 billion for a new one to be managed by the FDIC. Unfortunately, both proposals still face the same problems, namely the diverse ownership of mortgages caused by securitizing them into mortgage-backed securities. The Frank bill lists several options for this program in the hopes that the new Treasury secretary can come up with a more effective approach, but all of them face such severe logistical obstacles that the provision is more wishful thinking than anything else. Use the Fed for Future Crises. The financial market dangers that led to the TARP program, however, are far from over and could yet require additional governmental action. U.S. and international credit markets are still undergoing a wrenching restructuring and repricing of financial assets as markets adapt to the ending of excessive and risky borrowing. It is possible for another short-term crisis to once again cause financial markets to seize up. However, the first line of defense against these dangers should be the Federal Reserve Board under its wide, existing powers--not TARP. While some of the Fed's actions in recent months have been disconcerting, it is still the most appropriate institution to address short-term dislocation in the financial system. The Fed is also insulated from the political and lobbying pressures that have caused TARP to range far and wide from its original purpose. As the Frank legislation demonstrates, TARP is seen as almost a slush fund that is available both to respond to real crises and to address politically sensitive areas. However, the Fed has the ability to only focus on real situations that require its intervention while also avoiding political pressure. Rather than adding still more money to this increasingly untargeted TARP, Congress should just rely on the Fed to address any future emergencies. Time to End TARP. Regardless of valid criticisms about its day-to-day management and many specific efforts, TARP did achieve its short term purpose of heading off a financial catastrophe. However, as the Frank legislation shows, its future use will be as an increasingly unfocused and under- supervised fund to help politically active constituencies. It is time to lay TARP to rest and to move onto other more urgent priorities.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I rise to speak in opposition to the motion to recommit and in defense of George Bush.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, the argument is that because the bill directs the Secretary of the Treasury to do certain things that are within the jurisdiction of the Financial Services Committee, it is therefore allowed if you want to direct the Secretary of the Treasury to do anything. Now, it might, I suppose, be that the Secretary of Treasury could declare war on somebody under that theory, except my colleagues there don't believe having any check on the executive power to declare war; so they wouldn't vote that. There is a clear violation here of the rules. The gentleman from Texas then says, well, if you don't vote to totally disregard the rules of the House, because this isn't even a clear question by getting into Ways and Means jurisdiction, then you must not like what I want. The notion that people who believe that the rules ought to be followed are somehow disagreeing with the substance, of course, makes no sense. And, in fact, if there were a real intent to do this, I would assume a bill to do it would have been introduced and made available to the appropriate committees. No bill's been introduced. No serious effort has been made to do this. I hope that the point of order is sustained.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I move to lay that appeal on the table.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I have a point of order.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I reserve a point of order against the recommittal motion.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Clerk be authorized to make technical corrections in the engrossment of H.R. 384, to include corrections in spelling, punctuation, section numbering and cross-referencing, and the insertion of appropriate headings. We would not want inappropriate headings in our bill, Madam Speaker.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I rise to meet the formal requirement that someone rise who is in opposition, although that is not, as you know, highly enforceable.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. First, on the auto issue, let me say I agree that it would have been a mistake to have taken the original TARP vote and then said, Okay, use that to go to the aid of the three American automobile manufacturers. And this is why Speaker Pelosi correctly insisted that we vote on it. Now it turned out because the Senate didn't act, that it didn't become law. But what this House voted on had a major influence on what the Bush administration did. I was not prepared to support the use of TARP funds if it did not receive the vote of this House for the autos. So with regard to autos, the House has already, by a fairly large vote, decided to do that. That is the model I have in mind for this bill. There's probably some ambiguity as to whether or not the gentleman's amendment would require statutory change. I am in favor of resolving the ambiguity. I'd rather be redundant than ambiguous, as people might know from listening to my speeches. So I will work with him to get that bill passed. But on the basic point, here we are. It is true the Senate at this point says they are not going to pass it. It is true we are doing things here that we wish the Bush administration had done, but didn't do them. I believe that the Bush administration and the Obama administration are correct that it's in the interest of the economy for the second $350 billion, and they are very strongly agreed on that, both administrations, if it can be done well, it would be to the advantage of the economy in helping with the economic problems. But we are insisting that they do some things they didn't do at first. Even if it does not become law, as Members know, I will be talking with the Secretary of the Treasury, I will be talking, as will other Members, with the administration. When we tell them to do something about foreclosures, when we say to look at the problems of municipalities, if we have the force of a large majority of the House of Representatives behind us, it will make us even more persuasive. None of us, I think, have enough confidence in our mellifluous tones to think that on our own we can do things that we couldn't do when we are speaking for a majority of the House of Representatives. So passing this bill with these specifics will be adding greatly to our ability to get the administration to do these things. I should say it's already clear that under the Obama administration, unlike the Bush administration, there will be significant funds for foreclosure relief. I understand the dilemma some of my conservative friends have, because two leading journals of conservative opinion, the Wall Street Journal and the Heritage Foundation, have said, Don't do anything about foreclosures. Well, this bill will ensure that they do, to their disappointment.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I have to differ with my friend from Texas when he says it sends a signal that they shouldn't have $350 billion without a plan. They know they have the $350 billion. This is an effort to strengthen our hand when we impose some constraints on them. But the signal it sends is we care about these substantive issues: Foreclosure, requiring a disclosure, et cetera. It does not send a signal that they have $350 billion, because they have it. They don't need a signal. $350 billion is better than a signal; it is now legally theirs to spend without any constraint, except what we are able to impose on them through our efforts. I understand the gentleman disagrees with some of the specifics. Those were entirely reasonable points to make. But the notion that we shouldn't send them a signal to spend the money misses the point that they are about to spend the money next week whatever we do, and all we can do at this point, given what the Senate has done, is to try to impose some of the concerns we have on them.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I thank the gentleman from Arizona for his careful legislating. He is a careful legislator. He is exactly right. This amendment does make sure that the inspection IG's oversight purview is equivalent to that of the TARP. There have been concerns about the oversight, which we understand. I wanted to divide this in two as we talk about the oversight. The problem has been that they have not required enough of the--the Treasury hasn't required enough. The oversight mechanisms we put in there haven't seem, to me, to have done some good. The special IG was created. He was held up until the Senate acted. He recently issued an example of his plan to go forward. We have also had very good oversight by the Government Accountability Office. When Members read about the failure of Treasury to require the recipients of the capital infusions to do any re-lending, or at least to tell they were going to do it, that was documented by the Government Accountability Office in a very effective report, which we had a hearing on. And then the panel of appointees by the congressional leadership, which includes the gentleman from Texas, the former Senator from New Hampshire, and three other very energetic citizens, they have also put out good reports. So we have gotten some good oversight that tells us what they did wrong. But oversight, of course, only highlights that. It doesn't correct it. This legislation is in fact informed to some extent by that oversight, and hopes to build on it. The gentleman from Arizona's amendment will make sure that the oversight continues to be equal to the test. I reserve the balance of my time.