Louise Slaughter

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, we have found ourselves again at a junction where we have found ourselves many times in these last few years, at the mercy of the Senate. We have the bill that they passed; and, unfortunately, if we were to open it again, we would probably be here for another 2 years trying to do this bill, because I think both sides have many issues that they would have preferred to see here. But nonetheless, we understand the emergency that we are under, what it is that we have to do. I take great comfort and want to say again that three of the major committees having oversight over financial services will begin very shortly to have hearings not only to determine why we are in this position, but what we can best do in January in the new session to remedy it and make sure that it never happens again. We are expecting very quick action from those three committees. We wish them well. And we want the Nation to know that we are not just leaving town and letting that go, but we will be working on this throughout the rest of this time. With that, I want to urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question. I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I also ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 1525.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. DeFazio).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Solis).

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Madam Speaker, I was unavoidably detained and missed rollcall vote 683. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall 683.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I will.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I will reclaim my time, and I will urge everyone to vote ``yes'' on the previous question and ``yes'' on this rule so that we can get on with this important business of the House. As my colleague correctly points out, we have much, much work to do. I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I have no speakers, and we would be happy to have you close.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of my colleague whether he has any further speakers?

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, H. Res. 1514 waives clause 6(a) of rule XIII which requires a two-thirds vote to consider a rule on the same day it is reported from the Rules Committee. This waiver would apply to any rule reported on the legislative days of Sunday, September 28, and Monday, September 29, 2008. Waiving the same day is not an uncommon procedure. It has been used routinely by the majority party, both Republicans and Democrats, as an important tool to help expedite important legislation, particularly at the end of a legislative session. It is not as common to have a same day rule that covers any measure reported by the Rules Committee. This is the only time in this Congress that this Rules Committee has reported such a measure. All of the previous same day rules have applied to only those specific measures contained in the rule. However, in the 109th Congress, when my good friend, the gentleman from California, was chairman of the Rules Committee, there were five rules reported from the committee that did what this rule does this evening. I want to emphasize to my colleagues that adoption of this rule does not provide for passage of any other rule or any other bill on its own. Any measure brought before this House pursuant to this rule must pass by a majority vote, just like any other measure considered under regular order. What it does do is to allow the House to consider important legislation in a timely fashion. Hopefully, the legislation to help address our Nation's looming financial crisis will be ready for consideration soon. It is very important that this package is considered and adopted by the House as soon as possible. This rule is an important part of the process to make that happen. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, for the purposes of the record only, I will state why the majority has not taken the Senate bill, which as my colleague pointed out passed rather handily in the Senate. The Senate bill is not paid for. It is the purpose of this majority and has been for the 2 years we've been in the majority to pay for measures that we enact.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to my friend from California (Mr. Dreier). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only. I yield myself such time as I may consume. I also ask unanimous consent that all Members be given 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 1517.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am saddened to say that rarely has this body met under more dire circumstances. Our stock market is a roller coaster and the unemployment rate has soared. Many of our financial institutions, some of which were deemed ``too big to fail'' are on the brink of collapse. Our economy, the biggest and most robust in the world, is at a standstill. This is the greatest financial crisis since Herbert Hoover's administration's lack of oversight led our Nation into the Great Depression. We cannot steer ourselves through this crisis until we fully understand the road that we took to get here. After all, if we do not know what went wrong, how can we be sure to get it right in the future? Like so many Americans and Members of the New Direction Congress, I am deeply disappointed by this administration's reckless deregulation that wrecked our once-booming economy. Since the beginning of his first administration, President Bush has put incompetent people in charge of the Nation's most critical regulatory agencies; but because of this administration, big business always came first. A complete loss of transparency and a reliance on voluntary measures led to the total deregulation of the financial services industry. Yet as SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said this week, ``The last 6 months have made it abundantly clear that voluntary regulation does not work.'' He went on to say the program was ``fundamentally flawed from the beginning, because investment banks could opt in or opt out of supervision voluntarily. The fact that investment bank holding companies could withdraw from this voluntary supervision at their discretion ``diminished the perceived mandate'' and ``weakened its effectiveness.'' As President Franklin D. Roosevelt said, ``We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals. We now know that it is bad economics as well.'' This administration should have heeded Roosevelt's advice and followed his path to economic recovery by reinstituting important regulations on Wall Street. It is shocking and shameful that it took this catastrophe to show the administration that big business cannot be expected to regulate itself in good conscience. A recent survey by the University of Michigan found that 9 in 10 Americans feel that the economy is in a recession. It took a crisis of this magnitude to teach this administration what the American people clearly knew. And every day that Americans see the financial sector falter, they lose confidence in our economy. With many of the country's major financial institutions declaring bankruptcy or on the verge of declaring bankruptcy, we no longer have a choice on whether to offer a rescue package. The alternative, we've been told, is pure disaster. Financial failures help no one and put the savings of every family in jeopardy. Our jobs, our retirement savings, our college savings accounts for our children's future, our investments in our own future are at risk due to the failure of this industry. I have heard from hundreds of my constituents who are enraged at the lack of oversight that caused this mess. Congress is going ahead with this intervention because we've been warned that without it, Main Street could feel as much pain as Wall Street. When deregulation happened in the last century, it led to bread lines and Hoovervilles. Today, the New Direction Congress is working to shield Main Street from all of that and to lead us out of this mess to a brighter and more prosperous future. As FDR said, ``There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.'' And after much deliberation, we are moving forward with a bill that we hope will benefit all Americans. We believe and hope that this legislation can begin to stabilize our markets and start recovering consumer confidence. One week ago, we were handed an ultimatum for a blank check of $700 billion which lacked the very accountability and transparency--let me repeat that because this is so important--that demand for the bailout lacked the very accountability and transparency that contributed to the problem in the first place. And many safeguards, I'm happy to say, have been added to this bill since that time. We've worked hard to ensure that this package benefits consumers and homeowners more than it does the people who caused the crisis. We vowed that any bill that we passed would include serious oversight and transparency of any funds provided to the Secretary of the Treasury, and that's exactly what this proposal does. As the Speaker said, we have a three-part plan to reinvest, reimburse, and to reform. We will first rescue the troubled credit and financial markets to stabilize and to reinvest in our economy and insulate hardworking Americans; second, we will reimburse the taxpayer for every dime as the plan begins to work; and third, we will reform how business is done on Wall Street with no more golden parachutes for CEOs, trimmed executive compensation, and sweeping congressional investigation and regulations to prevent future abuses. By passing this bill, we're standing up for all Americans by ensuring that there will be no help for Wall Street without this help for Main Street. We're standing up for taxpayers by ensuring that this is not a blank check, and we are standing up for homeowners by taking actions to prevent foreclosures that are driving down home values across America. To help Americans keep their homes, this bill will allow the government to help modify loans by reducing the principal, the interest rate, or by increasing their window of time to pay back the loan. Although the administration's initial proposal called for no congressional or agency oversight, Democrats will require an appointed oversight panel to frequently report to the Congress--monthly--on what the Secretary of the Treasury is doing. In addition, Democrats insisted that the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, the GAO, will have an office inside the Department of Treasury to handle the funds. This will help to ensure any money spent is done in a way that is responsible to the American people. We are committed to using as little taxpayer money as is absolutely necessary, and we are set on recovering every cent. Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman will begin his oversight hearings next Wednesday. And in January with a new Congress and a new President, we will be ready to reinstate the regulations so cavalierly removed by the administration which believed that the financial industry could regulate itself--and it has with very dire results. Finally, Democrats pushed to ensure that the government receives shares of any company that it provides with aid. After agreeing to rescue AIG from filing for bankruptcy, the government received a nearly 80 percent share in that company. The action was reassuring enough to the market that people are now clamoring to buy the AIG assets. By making sure the government gets shares of companies that we aid, Democrats are working to revitalize this industry in a way that will benefit the taxpayers who are funding this rescue until the industry recovers; and by doing so, the New Direction Congress is standing up for swift action to ensure a more sound economic future for all Americans. Mr. Speaker, we saw what happens when an administration deregulates industry to a point where insecure companies are expected to police themselves. And that is why this Democrat-led Congress is doing everything possible to ensure that America keeps working and that the government is working for America. I reserve the balance of my time.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I yield an additional 20 seconds.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and a ``yes'' vote on the rule.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Yes, I am.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Kucinich).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. May I inquire from my colleague if he has any further speakers.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman).

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Let me first give Mr. Sherman 30 seconds to respond.

Ms. SLAUGHTER

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I move that the House do now adjourn.