Senator Pete Domenici

Floor Speech

SENATOR PETE DOMENICI -- (Senate - September 27, 2008)

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Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, these are one of the periods of our lives in the Senate we shall always remember. My good friend, the Senator from New Mexico, steps down and departs the floor. But you will be a Member of this decisionmaking body through the next few days, which will be critical when your vast experience will be brought to bear on this decision, as it will.

Mr. DOMENICI. Senator, I tell you, I said a little bit in my remarks a while ago about it. I get very excited and anxious because it takes too long. But that is the deliberative body. But we don't have a long time to give the Secretary of the Treasury the kind of authority he needs to fix a broken train.

We have had a wreck--lots of wrecks. All the freeways are clogged. We have to take away the things that are clogging them. We could look at it as a freeway with cracked-up cars, but actually the assets that are piled up there are the toxic assets that have been accumulated by those banks. If you don't get them out of the way, the line continues growing because of the broken-down cars, the toxic assets. The running cars can run no more. They are stopped in place. They contain everything that has given us a decent life in America.

We have to fix that. I am going to be here. Let's hope our negotiators will put something together that the executive branch tells us will work and that the world accepts it with confidence. When we come off this floor, when we vote that in--whatever it is, Monday or whatever--we will join, you and I, with great confidence that we have once again done something important.

Mr. WARNER. Mr. President, I was present today in our group of Senators. When you spoke, you inspired them. We have got to rebuild the confidence in America. That is what underlies this decision. I also wish to say a few words about our dear friend from Colorado. I cannot altogether make these remarks without divulging I have a bias. I have visited that beautiful State many times. But my daughter makes her home there, together with my grandson, and the Senator from Colorado allowed my grandson to be an intern in his office. He served as an intern briefly in my office, both without pay to the taxpayers, I hasten to say, when I make these remarks.

But he has been a great friend. We have worked together on many things. He has dignity. But above all it is his enthusiasm and love for this institution. There is not a day when he walks on this floor, either to say to other Senators or to say it quietly to himself: How fortunate I am to be a Senator, to come here to represent the people of Colorado, to represent the people, as each Senator does, of the whole of the United States.

So as I step down, and others, we do so with a sense of confidence, behind us remain individuals like yourself and indeed the distinguished Presiding Officer who for 30 years, he and I have served together on the Armed Services Committee. He will remain on. The Senate will be in good hands with you and our other colleagues to carry on and solve the problems for this great Nation and indeed much of the world.

I yield the floor.

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