Virginia Foxx

Ms. FOXX

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Ms. FOXX. I yield myself, Mr. Speaker, 12 minutes. I thank Mr. Frank for explaining why we are here this morning, but I would like to say that there is a difference between suggesting to the Obama administration what they should do through Mr. Frank's bill, which he knows is not going to pass the Senate, and that if the Democrats in charge wanted to really have control over how the next batch of money is going to be spent, then they would be serious and put into that bill restrictions. I don't think any of us have ever seen a time when the Congress has let go of so much money to the executive branch with no more restrictions on how it was going to be spent. I have seen committees argue over minor expenditures, but yet have appropriated $350 billion to the Bush administration and now are going to do the same thing to the Obama administration. I would say that there are a lot of the cliches that can be used in discussing this bill today, but I would say two wrongs don't make a right, that's one, I would say. But, again, I appreciate his taking the time to explain to people why we are here. In fact, the first legislation, the bailout legislation, as it was called, had within it the mechanism for stopping the money. What I have done is simply used the mechanism that was given to us, to do my best to stop it, and I want to give thanks to my legislative director, Brandon Renz, for his great help in this effort. It's really unfortunate that we have to meet today to consider this legislation under these circumstances. But since October, when Congress granted the previous administration unfettered access to taxpayer blank checks, we have seen a steady stream of reports outlining mismanagement, waste, and lack of oversight that was all too predictable during the initial consideration of the TARP/megabank bailout. And let me point out again that it was supported by President Obama and by the Democrats in the Congress. So you can't blame all of this on the Bush administration. The Members of Congress and the public were scared by a doomsday scenario that promised Armageddon if this singular proposal was not approved immediately. Deliberation, patience, prudence, yielded to panic, and the product of those poor decisions has led us to where we are today. Another cliche, ``Act in haste, repent at leisure,'' has assumed a new and expensive meaning. Americans are $350 billion poorer, and their sacrifices are about to double, as the Senate rejected S.J. Res. 5, which is the companion to the measure before us today. What is particularly troublesome is that President Obama was elected on the promise of bringing change, but another $350 billion is not change. Does President Obama think that if the bailout isn't working he must need a bigger bucket? The reasoning seems to be that since President Bush got his slush fund, it's only fair to grant the same to the incoming administration. But as I say, two wrongs don't make a right. This is just as big a mistake as the original bailout. The truth is that no administration, Republican or Democrat, should be allowed to nationalize a private company or industry, as we have witnessed with each successive bailout. This failed and expensive approach to trying to stabilize the economy is simply borrowing on the good credit of our children, our grandchildren and our great grandchildren, and now the government has an ownership stake. Now that the government has an ownership stake, the independent decisionmaking of nationalized entities will certainly take a back seat to political correctness and pork-barrel politics. Given my passionate opposition to the bailout mania, I am often asked what I support instead of more bailouts. At the time TARP was originally considered, I joined a bipartisan working group of Congresswomen in writing to Speaker Pelosi and Republican Leader Boehner expressing our concerns and offering reasonable alternatives for consideration. I also personally delivered proposals offered by President John Allison of BB&T directly to bailout negotiators, and I cosponsored legislation, H.R. 7223, prepared by the Republican Study Committee containing a comprehensive approach to dealing with this crisis. But at this point it's clear that less is more. The Federal Government has done enough, I would say too much, and even many supporters of the initial TARP/megabank bailout are now saying these efforts should be given time to work. After all, it was unwise Federal policies that prompted the excesses at the root of the financial collapse. In that respect, as George Mason University Professor Russell Roberts has put forward, ``Don't just do something, stand there.'' At the same time reasonable alternatives have been offered up to stimulate our economy by some of the finest minds in our nations. These alternatives have merit that I believe would be recognized if Congress would only pursue prudent deliberation instead of a hasty rush to judgment. For example, H.R. 470, of which I am a cosponsor, is a broad-based proposal that helps free up private capital that can be used as medicine to heal the ailing economy. Free-market solutions such as this are preferable and more effective than the Keynesian approach being discussed in Congress today. In fact, many people have compared what's happening now to what happened in the Great Depression, and many people are reading the book, ``The Forgotten Man,'' which talks about the Depression and the failures of the Depression and the failures of the Democrat administration in particular. I want to quote one sentence from it: ``But the deepest problem was the intervention, the lack of faith in the marketplace.'' I think that is the big problem that we are facing in this country today. We need to trust the marketplace. It is not the government. This is not a failure of capitalism and savior by the government. It's really a failure by the government, and we are doomed to repeat what happened in the Depression, I am afraid. I am sure, though, that today we are going to hear without the TARP/ megabank bailout we would be much worse off than without it. That's what Congressman Frank has already said. But not only is this argument speculative and untrue, it's a real tough sale to those struggling to find a job, credit or means to pay their bills. As the old adage goes, ``Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.'' We just seem incapable of learning the lessons of the past and destined to see history repeat itself. I urge our Members to join me today and do the right thing. Support this resolution and send a signal to the Obama administration that the bailout mania has to stop. And I would add one more thing. I did introduce this bill in the last session, so it would have applied to the Bush administration as well as to the Obama administration. With that, Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX. Our Republican leader was very eloquent in his comments. I think it's important to say one more time: Any money that Congress spends is taken from hardworking Americans who pay taxes, or is borrowed from foreigners. In the inauguration much has been made of President Lincoln. And this is the 200th anniversary of his birth. It was Lincoln who said, and I will paraphrase, but I will get the original quote for the Record, ``You cannot borrow yourself into prosperity.'' I think that as we talk about honoring Lincoln in this 200th anniversary of his birth, we should honor him by honoring his precepts and his values, because they are very important ones for us to remember. Mr. Speaker, I have no further speakers, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Ms. FOXX. On your time?

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, would the gentleman yield for a question?

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I want to say how much I appreciate all of my colleagues who have come to speak today and the points that they have made, but I want to tie in particularly to what Mr. Flake said, since he was the last speaker. I think it's a point I have made before, but it bears repeating, and that is that the Congress in this bill really abrogated its responsibility in terms of oversight. I will contend that in the original bill there was no oversight, there is no real oversight in the bill that was passed yesterday, no accountability. The American people expect the Congress to hold the executive branch accountable. When I speak to students about the Constitution, I say to them it is no accident that article I is about the Congress. That's what our Founders believed, the Congress was the most important branch of our government, and we have abrogated that responsibility. So I think it's important that there should have been a plan in the first bill, and I would say there is no plan in the bill that was passed yesterday. I think another point that needs to be made is that we are treating this money as if it's a silver bullet, but the original amount allocated for TARP was arbitrary. There was no correlation between the number the Treasury Department asked for and either the amount of troubled assets that needed to be bought, or the amount of capital injection that would be needed to stabilize the financial system. In fact, at the time, a Treasury spokesman said it's not based on any particular data point. We just wanted to choose a really large number. That goes along with the fact that the bill started out as three pages when it came from the Treasury Department and gave unlimited responsibility or authority to the Treasurer and became a 450-page bill. But even with that, with the fact the Democrats were in charge of the Financial Services Committee that wrote that bill, they wrote no accountability. They want to blame the Bush administration, but it's the Congress that has the responsibility for saying how money should be spent. We can't blame the Bush administration for this. It was our responsibility to say how it should have been spent. I want to say, in the bill that was passed yesterday that Mr. Frank keeps saying a lot of us voted against, even though we want more responsibility, this is what it says. There is no plan there. We didn't get a plan from the Bush administration, we don't have a plan from the Obama administration. This is not a partisan issue on my part nor on the part of all of us who voted against this. We voted against it when we were giving the money to the Bush administration, we are opposed to it under the Obama administration. Here's what it says in the bill that was passed yesterday: Allows TARP funds to be used for an auto bailout, greatly increases Federal involvement in the financial services sector. It will allow the Federal Government to tell companies how much they can pay employees, what mergers and acquisitions are acceptable. Is that a plan? That's not a plan to me. It expands the allowable uses of the TARP money. It supports State and local municipal bonds, consumer loans, commercial real estate loans, automobile companies. But it gives the Treasury Secretary very broad authority, again, with no accountability. That is not the direction in which we should be going. The Congress has the responsibility for accountability. The other thing that I think needs to be said is what we have heard over and over and over again by this administration, the current administration, and it's in a letter from Mr. Summers that was sent to the leadership here on January 12: ``We start 2009 in the midst of a crisis unlike any other we have seen in our lifetime.'' That is simply not true, and it's time that people started saying so. As Mr. Burton said earlier, the seventies were a much worse time than this is. I am tired of their feeling like they are going to save us from this terrible crisis that we are in, and come in riding on white horses and say we are going to save the United States with government intervention. They want to say that capitalism has failed and the government is saving us. I reject that argument, I reject it, and I will always reject it. It's not the government that's going to save us; it's the market that will straighten out this mess that we are in, mostly caused by the government. I want to set the record straight on one other issue. If this joint resolution passes the House, it is just as likely to be considered by the Senate as Mr. Frank's bill that passed the House yesterday. With that, I yield 2 minutes to Mr. Manzullo from Illinois.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona an additional minute.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake).

Ms. FOXX. I thank the distinguished majority leader for yielding to me. I would just like to ask a couple of questions. Is it not true that we are dealing with this bill today not just because we want to be nice, but because in the original legislation that was written there was a procedure for doing this, and that we are exactly following the procedure or else I would have been able to have offered a point of order related to it?

Ms. FOXX. Will the gentleman yield?

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Utah (Mr. Chaffetz).

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I now yield 3 minutes to my colleague from California (Mr. Campbell).

Ms. FOXX. I yield 1 minute to the distinguished and capable Republican leader, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner).

Ms. FOXX. Thank you. Isn't it true that, again, we are doing what is right and proving that we are a Nation of laws because this was written into the original bill. I commend the majority for doing that. I think it's very important that we not try to circumvent a law that we have passed. I think it's very, very important in terms of the messages we send to the American people. It's true that in the Rules Committee Mr. Frank said he did not think that the bill that we were passing would be taken up by the Senate. Is it the majority's intention in the House to ask the Senate to take up Mr. Frank's bill and to say we are not just asking the Obama administration to do these things but, like this bill, we are going to put into law what should be done, rather than petitioning the administration?

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to an outstanding new Member of Congress, Mrs. Lummis, from Wyoming.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Majority Leader, can I ask one more question?

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield the gentlewoman from Illinois 30 seconds to respond.

Ms. FOXX. Again, I appreciate the explanation that both you and Mr. Frank have given, but would you agree that the first bailout that was given to the Bush administration had absolutely no accountability in it, and unless the bill that was passed here yesterday is passed out of the Senate before the money is given to the Obama administration, that there is no guarantee of any accountability and that we will be asking for a report after the fact? The original bill had no oversight in it. It had after sight in it, but no oversight. And, again, I appreciate the fact that the majority has brought this bill up, and I think it was the right thing to do, but I would like to see that other bill passed, because I think we need accountability, whether it's on the Democrat side or the Republican side, and isn't it true that there is no accountability for how that money is going to be spent, unless the Frank bill is passed?

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. In just one second I am going to recognize my colleague from Indiana, but I want to say that I appreciate the argument that has been made that both Presidents, Secretaries of Treasury, and all these brilliant people, supposedly, have asked for this money and said it has to be done to save our Nation. But we know that in the Roosevelt administration, Henry Morgenthau and all those brain trust people who were there, said that, after 8 years, what the Roosevelt people did was a complete failure. I think this is the direction we are going. I now yield 4 minutes to my colleague, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence). (Mr. PENCE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. I think it is important to point out that my colleague from California made some great comments; however, he says the bill has no statutory significance. Let me point out to him, the majority leader, and the chairman of the committee that the bill that the Senate rejected was their own bill, Senate Joint Resolution 5. This bill would have statutory significance if it passes because it would be alive and eligible for the Senate to consider, and I think it is very important that we point that out. It was the Senate bill that was rejected, not this bill. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to Mr. McClintock, my colleague from California.

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. I have the greatest respect for Mr. Frank and his experience and his knowledge of the workings of this body and the Senate. But I have to say, you are wrong about whether this bill is dead on arrival. It is not dead before it. It is possible to be heard in the Senate. It doesn't have to be heard under expedited processes. You're absolutely right. But it is not dead. It is not dead before it goes there. It is not dead on arrival. So I think that has to be corrected. And I want to say that----

Ms. FOXX. No, not on my time.

Ms. FOXX. Would the gentleman yield?

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Burton).

Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my distinguished colleague from South Carolina (Mr. Barrett).