The Nation's Current Financial Situation - Sept. 14, 2009

Mr. Speaker, the context of my remarks is engaging the issue of the current financial situation that the United States finds itself in.

Mr. Speaker, it was less than 1 year ago that the government began Bailout Nation, which was $700 billion in tax money that was given to the United States Treasury Secretary for the purpose of stabilizing America's financial situation. Let's take just a brief history of what has happened in the United States in just less than 1 year's time.

This Congress appropriated essentially a blank check to the Treasury Secretary of $700 billion, a blank check. The Treasury Secretary literally could do anything he wanted to do with that $700 billion. That $700 billion went to the Treasury Secretary. It's gone to bail out banks. It's gone to bail out an insurance company, and it has gone to set up the automobile task force.

In that time we have seen $700 billion go not only for that bailout; we also saw $29 billion go to Bear Stearns to shore up that investment banking house. We also saw $200 billion go for Fannie and Freddie, the secondary mortgage company, because, remember, all of this began with a meltdown in the housing industry. So we thought, first of all, money needed to go to bail out the secondary mortgage provider.

Almost all loans today in the United States are now backed up by the Federal Government. This is amazing what has happened to our country in less than 1 year's time. We saw over $100 billion of our tax money go to bail out the largest insurance company in the United States, AIG. Still the United States taxpayer has yet to be repaid the money for AIG. We have yet to be made whole.

We have yet to be made whole for the money that was extended to General Motors and Chrysler. That's tens of billions of dollars that were given to the car companies. We were told that we had to give them tens of billions so they wouldn't go into bankruptcy. Well, lo and behold, what happened? Both GM and Chrysler went into bankruptcy.

We were told that we had to give all of this money to Freddie and Fannie so that they won't go into bankruptcy, and we continue to pour taxpayer money into Freddie and Fannie. Not only that, the American taxpayer was told to give another $75 billion in mortgage bailout money.

At what point do we say enough is enough? Two hundred billion dollars for the secondary mortgage company, another $75 billion for mortgage bailout. But that wasn't enough because the American taxpayers were told we needed to give a trillion dollars in stimulus programs. A trillion dollars. That money hasn't been completely let out, thank God. Every penny that hasn't let out at this point should be reeled back in, and we shouldn't be committing any more of that money.

We also agreed in this body to spend another $400 billion in an end-of-the-year budget gap that we were able to shore up.

At this point we know the Congressional Budget Office has said that our country will be in deficit $1.6 trillion this year, and it may get worse. How do we know that? Unemployment is at 9.7 percent, and President Obama's own economic advisor has said if we pass his version of the government takeover of health care, we will lose 5.5 million more jobs. We have lost 4 million jobs. If we pass President Obama's health care reform, by his numbers, we will lose another 5.5 million jobs. And if we pass his national energy tax, the cap-and-trade bill, this energy tax, by President Obama's own numbers, will cost our economy an additional 2.5 million jobs lost every year going forward. This doesn't seem to be working for us as we look at this 1-year anniversary of Lehman Brothers collapsing.

So now the Federal Government owns or controls 30 percent of all private business profits. And if President Obama gets his way and takes over another 18 percent of our economy in health care, that means the Federal Government will own or control 48 percent of private business profits. Just think, a year ago 100 percent of private business profits were private. Today we're looking at the specter of 48 percent of private business profits owned or controlled by the Federal Government.

Mr. Speaker, that's why the American people are nervous. That's why they don't want government to own or control any more of our economy.

155 Congr. Rec. H9470 (2009). https://www.congress.gov/congressional-record/volume-155/issue-129/house-section/article/H9470-1.