TARP Reform and Accountability Act of 2009

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Mr. PRICE of Georgia. I want to thank the gentleman from Alabama for his stellar leadership on this issue.

Well, Mr. Chairman, here we are, another $350 billion, $350 billion. Now, I don't want to overstate the obvious, but Mr. Chairman, that's money that we don't have.

In addition to that, the process points that have been made I think are incredibly important. We haven't had any appropriate committee work. We've had a discussion, but there hasn't been the hearings devoted specifically to this bill. There hasn't been a markup. We haven't had the opportunity in committee to amend this bill, to have Member input. Members haven't had the opportunity to provide input into the development of the legislation. The mere fact that there are 70 amendments filed with the Rules Committee, 50 of them from Democrats, clearly demonstrates that Members on both sides of the aisle have concerns about this legislation and ideas that they would like to share.

We've seen bailout after bailout after bailout, yet our constituents have felt no relief. We cannot, in good conscience, allow the government to dig deeper into their pockets and spend their money without giving their elected Representatives the opportunity to be heard.

Fundamentally, Mr. Chairman, we're talking about examining a vital role. What's the vital issue that says a lot about what we believe our government role ought to be? We're being asked to entrust Treasury with the authority to spend an additional $350 billion, a huge sum of money, and allowing them to take on additional risk to the taxpayers by pursuing modifications that have not yet proven to be a wise investment.

Now, we can all agree that the oversight of the initial TARP program has been wanting, there's no doubt about that; that's evidenced by the fact that Treasury completely shifted the original purpose of the program without consultation or consequence. Treasury has failed to answer basic questions, they have struggled to track the billions of taxpayer dollars, and they seem to have no way to measure the success of this program.

When Secretary Paulson initially approached Congress with an urgent request for funding and broad authority to stabilize the economy, a representative from the Treasury admitted that they were arbitrarily picking a number. In fact, when we asked a senior member at the Treasury Department how did they arrive at $700 billion, do you know what they said, Mr. Chairman? They said, ``We needed a really big number.'' Well, that's not terribly encouraging as to how to arrive at the amount of taxpayer money that they are putting at risk.

There have been no indications that the last tranche of funding is needed, indeed, to further stabilize the economy. There have been no emergency meetings to explain why this money is necessary and how it would be used effectively to justify this release. In fact, just a few days ago Mr. Kashkari described our financial system as ``fundamentally more stable'' than when we began.

Ultimately we have seen, through the failures of the TARP program and the Hope for Homeowners Program, that the government isn't the solution to all of our problems. Again, we've seen bailout after bailout, but there doesn't yet seem to be any relief for constituents and taxpayers. It's because of the hasty passage of the TARP program in the first place that we're now in the position to consider sweeping changes to the program.

The regular democratic process in order would ensure that all Members of Congress can make their voice heard on this very important issue. To say that there isn't time to have a markup is not only disingenuous, Mr. Chairman, it simply is not true. We should take the time necessary to ensure that we are truly acting in the best interests of the American people. Perhaps if we had taken the time to allow for markup and evaluation initially, we would not be in the situation that we find ourselves now.

Rather than entrenching our government with $350 billion of additional debt, I think it's time that we start considering positive solutions that embrace American values, American principles, and American solutions, none of which appear in the underlying bill.

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