Providing for Consideration of Senate Amendment to House Amendments to Senate Amendment to H.R. 3221, Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF SENATE AMENDMENT TO HOUSE AMENDMENTS TO SENATE AMENDMENT TO H.R. 3221, HOUSING AND ECONOMIC RECOVERY ACT OF 2008 -- (House of Representatives - July 23, 2008)
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Mr. GARRETT of New Jersey. I thank the gentleman.
I rise to the floor to oppose this rule and to also oppose the underlying bill, a bill that would, as the hurricanes that are going across this country, devastate this country financially and put the American taxpayer on the hook, not for $10 billion, not for $20 million, we're upwards to $5 trillion.
I commend the hearing that we had last night on this bill, which was over 1 hour. That's an hour more than we've had any discussion whatsoever on this potential of putting the American taxpayer on the hook for $5 trillion. Chairman Frank did not hold one single hearing to discuss how this would impact the American public nor the American financial system; hearing after hearing that we held on all sorts of other things, but never could we get to this topic.
In fact, the chairman last night called ``nonsensical'' the idea that the American public could be put on the hook for upwards to $300 billion. Well, remember this; that was the same chairman, unfortunately, who told us 5 years ago and 3 years ago and 1 year ago, nonsensical was the idea that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac could ever fail. In fact, that's the same chairman who told us that he would never support the bailing out of the GSEs. In fact, if I looked into the transcripts of our past hearings where the gentleman from Massachusetts spoke, he said repeatedly, ``I would never support the bailout of Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac or the GSEs.'' Well, sir, here we are today, upwards to a $5 trillion bailout for the GSEs. In fact, this will make the savings and loan scandals of a few years ago pale by comparison.
And I remind the American public, how did that unfold? First, it was a $10 billion request to the American taxpayer that they used to bail out the savings and loan. Then it was $50, $70--finally, $200 billion plus was asked for the American taxpayer to bail out the American savings and loans in this country. That's the exact same thing that's potentially going to occur here today as we bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for their exclusively bad decisionmaking.
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