Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, today, I would like to pay tribute to the Wareham High School Basketball team who just captured the first Division III State Championship Title for the town of Wareham, Massachusetts. This was their first state title since 1956. This impressive team is led by Coach Kevin Brogioli and includes Jules Tavares, who scored a game-high 25 points and Pat Murphy, who scored 11 points, including his 1,000th career point.

This season, the Vikings have scored 100 points or more in four games, beating Cardinal Spellman 78-71 to clinch the Division III South Sectional Championship, besting Bedford at the TD Bank Boston Garden 63-49 to becomes the Division III Eastern Championship and defeating New Leadership of Springfield 80-57 at the DCU Center in Worcester to capture the Division III State Championship Title.

Congratulations to Coach Brogioli, Assistant Coach Steve Faniel, Assistant Coach Mike Ponte and the Vikings team, listed here in alphabetical order: Darien Fernandez, Sheldon Frye, Jowaun Gamble, Marcus Gomes, Darren Gray, Jeff Houde, Harry Irving, Dylan Marcal, Mike Mendes, Pat Murphy, Ryan Pina, Jordan Rezendes, Dwight Senna, Jules Tavares, and Nikko Vasconcellos. We are very proud of their teamwork, dedication, and sportsmanship.

I am enclosing a proclamation by the town of Wareham and an article that further describes this important achievement.

Town of Wareham--Proclamation by the Board of Selectmen

Whereas, the Wareham High School Boys' Varsity Basketball

team, known as the Vikings, have demonstrated exemplary

sportsmanship and teamwork, and

Whereas, their coach, Kevin Brogioli, along with the

assistant coaches, parents and supporters, showed great faith

and encouragement to the Vikings, and

Whereas, the Vikings had scored 100 points or more in four

games, averaging 87.8 points per game in the regular season,

and had three players to reach 1,000 or more points scoring,

and,

Whereas, the Vikings beat Cardinal Spellman 78-71 to clinch

the Division III South Sectional Championship, and

Whereas, the Vikings defeated Bedford at the TD Bank Boston

Garden 63-49 to become the Division III Eastern Champions,

and

Whereas, the Vikings defeated New Leadership of Springfield

80--57 at the DCU Center in Worcester; to capture the first

Division III State Championship title for Wareham,

Now, therefore, We, the Wareham Board of Selectmen, do

hereby proclaim Saturday, March 13, 2010 through Saturday,

March 20, 2010 as:

``STATE CHAMPION WAREHAM VIKINGS WEEK''

In Wareham, culminating with a Parade on Saturday March 20,

2010, to honor the young men and the coaches of Wareham

Vikings Basketball team that have made this town so proud.

Madam Speaker, I ask your indulgence and that of my colleagues to celebrate two wonderful events: the 90th birthdays of two extraordinary women, each of whom has been very important in my life. We spoke often here about some of the problems people face as we age, and it's appropriate for public policy to be focused on that. But that can lead to an unfortunate impression of older people as always the objects of other people's help, and of the difficulties that they face. There is of course another side to that story--the satisfaction that comes to people who have led loving, productive lives, in which they have been of great service to others, and who are now able to enjoy their years and look both back and around at the people they have loved and nurtured.

One of these two extraordinary women is Dorothy Golush, the widow of my Uncle Abe, who was one of my mother's older brothers. My mother was part of a remarkable family of three brothers and three sisters, children of immigrants, who created a warm, loving extended family. A few years ago, the four surviving siblings died within an eighteen month period, at ages ranging from ninety-two to one hundred and five. The one survivor of that generation, who is an inspiration for myself, my siblings and my cousins, is our Aunt Dot--who recently turned ninety. She is blessed with the vigor and acuity that has marked her life, and for me, it is a pleasure to come home after a long day here and pick up my phone and listen to a wonderful message of encouragement from her, after she's read about some particularly important piece of work that we have done.

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to be able to offer a Happy Birthday to Dorothy Golush, on behalf of all of us in the generation after her, who have so benefitted from her life.

And while paying tribute to my aunt here, I also want, Madam Speaker, to pay tribute to a woman who is widely known in the Greater Newton area as ``The Godmother.'' Peg Hannigan will turn ninety this month. I regret very much that I am unable to be at the celebration of this event at the Scandinavian Home where she now lives on March 25, so I am sending this along in my absence.

Peg Hannigan's political work began in 1947, when she got involved in John Kennedy's campaign for Congress. In the ensuing years she became an increasingly more important figure for those of us interested in political life. For cynics who believe that there is some conflict between political idealism and political practicality, Peg Hannigan is a living, breathing, absolute refutation. No one I have met in my own years in elected office has been more dedicated to the values of fairness that represent America at our best, and no one has been a more effective ally to those of

us seeking elected office to promote this. I share with former Governor Michael Dukakis, former Attorney General Frank Bellotti, my predecessor, the late Robert Drinan, and a number of other people in elected office the status of being very much in her debt.

Madam Speaker, I indulge myself personally by these comments, but they have a broader point as well: for young people who are skeptical that politics can be both a valuable and honorable way of spending one's time, Peg Hannigan's life is an extraordinarily valuable lesson and I hope that at least some people reading these words will be motivated to learn a little bit more about her, and even want to emulate her.

Madam Speaker, through you I wish a very Happy 90th Birthday to two wonderful women.

Madam Speaker, I hope people will take note that there is not a correlation between the importance of what we do and the attention that what we do gets. This is not controversial because it is a product of genuine cooperation.

I am delighted to be on the floor with my friend, the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus). A few years ago, along with him and the gentleman from California and our former colleague, the gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Leach, we, frankly, beat the leaderships of both parties and the Clinton administration to get debt relief through. They've learned, so we don't have to fight so hard this time for a very important cause.

I am very pleased to be joining in this wholly cooperative way in a morally compelled response to the problems of the people of Haiti. And I join in thanking the gentlewoman from California again, the gentleman from New York, and my colleagues on the other side from California and Alabama for letting us bring this forward.

Various Members and their staffs have been congratulated, as they should be. It's not as easy to do the right thing as it sometimes seems; you want to make sure you get it done well.

I just want to single out Daniel McGlinchey on the staff of the Financial Services Committee, who has been working at this for a long time, in cooperation with the others. This is a day in which the House can be proud, even if, because we're not yelling at each other, the press won't notice.

Madam Speaker, mixed emotions describe the way I and the people of New Bedford feel about the retirement of Joseph S. Finnerty, as Executive Director of the New Bedford Housing Authority. Running a housing authority and a city is no easy job, as people well know. But Joe Finnerty has never been one to complain about this task for which he volunteered and which he has performed in an extraordinary fashion for thirty-five years. No one can begrudge him his retirement after all that service in such a demanding position, but Joe can't begrudge us our feelings of regret that he's leaving. As Executive Director of the Housing Authority, Joe Finnerty has served not just the residents of public housing, but all of the people of New Bedford, by the great contributions he has made to the quality of life for those residents and for the city as a whole.

Madam Speaker, tomorrow, March 10th, some of Joe's close friends, who know well what an extraordinary asset he has been to the city and people of New Bedford, are gathering with him to provide a well-earned salute. As you know, our business will keep me here in D.C. at that time, so I am taking advantage of this forum to send him my best wishes, not simply personally, but because the example of a man who has dedicated so much of his life to the important job of running a public housing authority, and done it so well, ought to be held up for those who sometimes become unduly pessimistic about the good that can be done in government. And I ask that the article by Jack Spillane, from the New Bedford Standard Times, be printed here for that purpose.

[Jan. 26, 2010]

Retiring Housing Chief Looks Back on Reign With Pride

(By Jack Spillane)

Few people in New Bedford have positively affected more

people's lives over the last 35 years than Joseph S.

Finnerty.

Entrusted with the housing care of thousands of low-income

city residents since 1975, Joe Finnerty has presided over an

era in which the city authority rebuilt much of its aging

public housing stock, de-leaded more than 2,000 units, and

put into motion rebuilding projects that will eventually make

scores of housing units accessible to the disabled.

Under the leadership of the 73-year-old Finnerty--who will

retire at the end of this month--the New Bedford Authority

has, for decades, provided stable and reliable housing for

thousands of low-income city residents.

But it's something else that Finnerty--a member of a

political family long active in city and local Democratic

politics--seems most proud of. During Finnerty's long tenure

as executive director, the New Bedford Housing Authority did

not lose any of its public units to market-rate housing. (Any

apartments lost to demolition have been replaced by other

units elsewhere in the city.)

That's a monumental achievement in an era when housing

rental rates far exceed the ability of people who work in

minimum-wage jobs to afford any type of housing.

Finnerty is a staunch defender of the need for government-

sponsored public housing.

``I don't see why you don't want to provide housing that's

affordable to people so that they can raise their families,''

he said.

Public housing's biggest beneficiaries are the elderly,

children and the disabled, he noted. ``It provides affordable

rents so that a family is not struggling to maintain a decent

environment.''

Finnerty's philosophy notwithstanding, it's not unusual to

hear local complaints that New Bedford possesses too much

government housing, that people are moving down from Boston

because the housing is more affordable in New Bedford and

Fall River.

Finnerty says he doesn't understand the attitude.

It would not be progress, he said, to return to the massive

slum and tenement districts that blighted American cities in

the 1930s and 1940s.

``We can do a lot better than that now, and we are doing

better,'' he said.

``Public housing is no different than public health. It's

no different than public transportation. It's a vital part of

an urban community,'' he said.

``There are judges, university presidents and community

leaders who grew up in public housing, or who for a

significant time in their lives lived in public housing,'' he

noted.

And the cities, Finnerty said, take responsibility for most

of the public-housing stock necessary to their surrounding

towns and suburbs. (By and large, suburban communities have

limited their public housing to elderly units, leaving their

own low-income families and disabled to relocate in the

cities.)

Finnerty seems like a model for what a good, low-end, urban

private landlord should have been.

He touts the importance of mixing working tenants with non-

working ones in public housing. And he was always a no-

nonsense manager who made it clear to bad public-housing

tenants that he would evict them. (He's even been consulted

by private owners of low-income housing about how to keep

developments safe and secure.)

``Public housing is not a right, it's a privilege,'' he

said.

Many public housing tenants are ambitious, working two

jobs, and some eventually get themselves out of public

housing, Finnerty said.

``People who live in public housing are not different. They

are intelligent people. Their character is the same as the

people who live in non-public housing.''

The job of a housing authority in a city the size of New

Bedford (just short of 100,000 people at the last census) is

not a small one.

There are some 4,355 government-supported housing units in

New Bedford that were either directly or indirectly under

Finnerty's management--more than 2,500 federal and state

units, and an additional 1.600-plus Section 8 vouchers for

private housing.

Finnerty, who worked for 13 years as a teacher and coach in

the Fairhaven school system, originally thought he would

preside over the housing authority for a comparatively short

period. A political appointee of popular former Mayor John

Markey, he thought he would return to public education,

perhaps as a principal or superintendent.

(Finnerty, by the way, was one of the founding members of

the board that built Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational-

Technical High School and is a former trustee at both UMass

Dartmouth and Southeastern Massachusetts University.)

But at the housing authority, Finnerty said there were

always important projects proceeding and he wanted to oversee

them to completion.

``I saw it (the public housing stock) as really an

investment for the city,'' he said. ``And it was definitely

needed.''

Madam Speaker, at my recent visit to a very important charitable organization known as Gifts to Give, in New Bedford, Massachusetts, I had a conversation with Dr. Steve Russell, who is the Superintendent of Schools in the town of Dartmouth. Gifts to Give, by the way, is an extremely creative organization that collects toys and other items important for children and distributes them to children in need. Stating it the way I have does not do justice to the extraordinarily creative, interactive organization known as Gifts to Give, and I am deeply impressed with the work of Jim Stevens, who has created something that benefits both the donors and the recipients alike, and gives people an extraordinary opportunity to engage in the most rewarding form of community service.

During my conversation with Dr. Russell, he handed me a copy of an article that had appeared in Newsweek on February 15th, written by Barbara Pfeffer. In the article, Professor Pfeffer makes a compelling case, drawing on academic research as well as sound argument, that reliance on layoffs, as a way of dealing with short-term economic distress for companies, is not only socially damaging, but economically unwise as well.

Madam Speaker, it is too long an article to be printed here entirely, so I did want to give

a summary and to recommend that people read the entire article.

Dr. Pfeffer notes that ``In the last decade, layoffs have become America's export to the world. At a conference in Stockholm a few years ago, business executives told me,'' she noted, ``that to become as competitive as America, Sweden needed to make it easier to lay people off . . . There are daily calls for European countries to follow the U.S. and make labor markets more `flexible.' But the more you examine this universally accepted tactic of modern management, the more wrongheaded it seems to be.''

Professor Pfeffer goes on to note ``that research paints a fairly consistent picture: layoffs don't work.'' And the article closes in a strong, coherent summary, ``Layoffs are mostly bad for companies, harmful for the economy, and devastating for employees . . . There is substantial research literature in fields from epidemiology to organizational behavior documenting these effects. The damage from overzealous downsizing will linger even as the economy recovers. . . .''

Madam Speaker, I thank Dr. Russell for calling this to my attention, and I commend to my colleagues a reading of this very important article.

Madam Speaker, there is wide agreement that we should be taking tough measures to reduce the budget deficit. There appears at present to be a powerful myth that this can be done without attacking the biggest single area of increase in the federal budget in recent years, the military budget.

The transition from the Clinton to the Bush administration, which meant a transition from a surplus to a deficit situation, had as its single most important cause a decision by President Bush to fight two wars with five tax cuts. While President Obama has not repeated that same pattern, his announcement that he is going to begin deficit reduction, while exempting the ever-increasing military budget from the same scrutiny that goes to other Federal expenditures, means either that deficit reduction in both the near and long term is either doomed to failure, or that devastating cuts will occur in virtually every Federal program that aims at improving the quality of our lives.

I intend to work with many others to make the case that over the next 10 years we can save substantial amounts of money--a trillion or more of currently proposed expenditures--by reexamining some of the fundamental premises of American military policy. Some of those are based on Cold War assumptions--the need for three separate delivery systems for several nuclear weapons, which was designed in an era of confrontation with the Soviet Union. We also must suggest the notion that America can be the world's pacifier, policemen etc. Our security interest must be protected, and there are beleaguered nations threatened with hostile, foreign assaults where our support is justified. But our range of commitments goes far beyond that and must be scaled back.

There are also obviously places where the current military budget can be cut, even before we begin to reduce the level of commitments. In the very useful publication Congress Daily for Monday, February 1st a thoughtful and experienced journalist, who is an expert on the military budget, George C. Wilson, cogently rebuts the President's assertion that military requirements mean that we cannot subject the huge and growing Pentagon budget to the kind of scrutiny that goes elsewhere. Note that Mr. Wilson is talking primarily about a budget aimed at the current level commitments. A serious review of those commitments, which should result in a reduction in their scope, would allow us to go much further in reduction, reaching the magnitude of savings that are needed for us to be able to have the military budget make a substantial contribution to deficit reduction.

Madam Speaker, no issue before us is more important than the need for people to include a realistic assessment of military spending in any effort to reduce the deficit much less this year, or over the next ten. I ask that George C. Wilson's extremely well-argued article, which makes such an essential contribution in this debate, be printed here.

[From the Forward Observer, Feb. 1, 2010]

Fattest Lady Singing

(By George C. Wilson)

In declaring in his State of the Union address that he

won't cut the Pentagon budget, President Obama is like a

trainer telling the fattest lady in his class that she need

not do her exercises. Why didn't Obama order the fat Defense

Department to join the government-wide effort to reduce the

deficit by killing off weapons that no longer make sense?

Two-thirds of our casualties in the Iraq War were inflicted

by hidden bombs that the bad guys set off by cell phones or

other simple devices available at Radio Shack. Neither our

new aircraft carriers costing $12 billion apiece nor our new

F-22 fighter aircraft costing $350 million a plane can keep

our troops from being killed or wounded by cheap improvised

explosive devices.

This doesn't mean that deficit cutters should cancel such

super weapons willy nilly. More conventional wars than the

ones in Iraq and Afghanistan may well be in America's future.

But Obama and Congress should at least order Defense

Secretary Gates and his deputies to justify every major

weapon by explaining what red-hot threat out there justifies

spending fresh billions on it.

The GAO drew a good road map for conducting such a review

last year in its devastating report on Pentagon cost

overruns. Entitled ``Defense Acquisitions: Assessments of

Selected Weapon Programs; the GAO studied 96 major weapons in

2008 and discovered that the contractors' original price tag

had nothing to do with reality.

The cost overruns on the weapons studied totaled $296.4

billion. Just making the contractors, not the taxpayers, eat

their own cost overruns would reduce the deficit by almost

$300 billion.

Instead of making such a demand, Obama last Wednesday gave

defense contractors, their overseers in the Pentagon and

Congress a pass: ``Starting in 2011 we are prepared to freeze

government spending for three years. Spending related to our

national security, Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security

will not be affected. But all other discretionary government

programs will.''

Where is Congress in this supposed war against the deficit

that Obama just declared? The Founding Fathers in Article I,

Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution gave Congress the power to

``provide for the common defense,'' not the president.

When are the lawmakers going to start cutting Pentagon

programs like outrageously expensive warships, planes that

soar over the price tags contractors originally put on them

and missile defenses that have a lot bigger flaws than

Toyota's stuck gas pedals?

``Never,'' is the answer I get from some of the walking

wounded who fought in past battles of the Pentagon budget.

They say any weapons, whether justified by today's threats or

not, get protected by lawmakers as long as they provide jobs

back home.

Congress, these vets contend, to reassert its

constitutional right to provide for the common defense,

should deny money to produce any weapon before it is

thoroughly tested; forbid congressional add-ons to the

Pentagon budget unless CBO and GAO have determined what the

pet project would cost and, if deemed worthy, conduct an open

competition to build it; forbid any congressional staffer

from vaulting to a job in the Pentagon or defense industry.

Obama did take one step toward making congressional

wheeling and dealing on add-ons more transparent by declaring

in his address that ``I'm calling on Congress to publish all

earmark requests on a single Web site before there's a vote

so that the American people can see how their money is being

spent.'' That might help some but not much. Voters in the

lawmaker's district or state might not object to getting

earmarked for goodies.

As one who has studied the military-industrial-political-

intelligence complex for almost 50 years now from the front

row seat a defense reporter gets, I think the deficit,

unemployment, cost overruns on weapons that don't work and/or

have nothing to do with winning the war against terrorists--

along with voter disgust with Washington's spending binge--

will eventually force the president and Congress to rein in

their spending on dubious weapons.

The overseers will realize that real national security

means fixing the national economy, not letting the Defense

secretary and Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps

continue to drive the taxpayers to the poor house in

Cadillacs.

As one who spent seven and a half months on an aircraft

carrier, let me fuel the eventual battle of the Pentagon

budget by asking right here and now whether it makes sense in

these economic times to build all three of the new carriers

of the class named after the late President Gerald R. Ford.

In its latest Selected Acquisition Report, the Pentagon

projects that three of these Ford class carriers will cost a

total of $35 billion, or almost $12 billion each. A pilot who

really knows carriers from taking off and landing on them

thousands of times told me that the bad guys could disable

the carrier flight deck with comparatively cheap missiles or

do what our own Navy frogmen have already done: Sneak aboard

a carrier at night undetected by climbing up its steel sides

on magnetic shoes. ``They can make it rain longer than we can

swim; the pilot said of those bent on dethroning the queen of

the Navy fleet.

Mr. Speaker, I recently got some first- hand experience with the way in which the right-wing propaganda machine operates. The pattern appears to be to begin with a lie and then have that lie multiplied through an echo chamber that repeats it and repeats it.

In this case, a man named John Fund, who is an editorial writer at the Wall Street Journal, one of the most right-wing of our publications these days, on the editorial page just told a lie about me in November of last year. He gave a speech at Restoration Weekend. I don't know what they were restoring, but it certainly wasn't respect for the truth. And he said, ``Democrats were very rattled by the November 3 election results. What do liberals do when they lose elections? They change the rules. In January, Chuck Schumer and Barney Frank will propose universal voter registration.'' ``There'll be felon reenfranchisement too.'' ``The Feds will tell the States, `Take everyone on every list of welfare recipients you have, take everyone on every list of unemployed you have.' ''

It's a lie. He made it up. It's not even a misinterpretation. It's not a quote taken out of context. It is a total myth. There is no such bill. There wasn't in November. Then right-wing echo chamber picks it up. The Washington Times, the voice of the Reverend Moon, says, Schumer and Frank ``have plans to ram through legislation that will produce universal voter registration.'' And they say it will be on the floor of the House in 2 weeks. It's the lie repeated. Glenn Beck joined in. Rush Limbaugh joined in.

This begins with a totally fictional accusation by John Fund with no basis whatsoever. It is then repeated by Glenn Beck and repeated by the Washington Times and repeated by Rush Limbaugh. None of them have checked what we were talking about, none of them seeing if it was accurate.

I was asked by a constituent why I had done that. My response was, Done what? I didn't do it. So I checked into it, and I found that the source of this was Mr. Fund's totally irresponsible myth in November. So I wrote to Mr. Fund--and I put this letter in there--and said, I was puzzled to hear you say this. I checked. I now write to tell you that you are entirely wrong in your assertion about me, and in the absence of your being able to show any basis on which you made such a statement, to ask you to acknowledge that fact.

He is not only a liar; he is a coward. He wouldn't do it. My staff member, Mr. Gural, asked him, called him up and said, Well, what was this based on? He said, Oh, I made a mistake. Well, have you issued a retraction? Mr. Gural asked him. Oh, yeah, he said. Can we see a copy? Mr. Gural reasonably asked. Oh, I told a couple of people.

So here we are. Mr. Fund makes it up. It's a lie. It's a myth. There was nothing there. And it's to discredit all Democrats. His right-wing cohorts then echo it and echo it. The next thing you know, it's going to be coming on the floor in the House in 2 weeks. People hear it, and it's all over the blogs. This is the Democrats' disregard for the electoral process. And when we call Mr. Fund's attention to the fact that this was a lie, what does he say? Whoops. But he's not going to tell anybody about it.

Mr. Speaker, this is not the only case of this. And I know this has happened before; but because I was directly involved here, I am in a position to document this. It begins with a lie from this editorial writer from the Wall Street Journal. It is then a lie repeated by all of his right-wing colleagues. And then when he is nailed in the lie, he simply blithely refuses to do anything about it.

I hope people will take from this the lesson to be very skeptical when these right-wing propagandas--Limbaugh or Beck or the Washington Times or the Wall Street Journal editorial board--propagate these vicious smears.

Partial Text of John Fund's Speech at Restoration Weekend November 21,

2009

Democrats were very rattled by the November 3rd election

results. What do liberals do when they lose elections? They

change the rules. In January, Chuck Schumer and Barney Frank

will propose universal voter registration.

What is universal voter registration? It means all of the

state laws on elections will be overridden by a federal

mandate. The feds will tell the states, ``Take everyone on

every list of welfare recipients you have, take everyone on

every list of unemployed you have, take everyone on every

list of property owners, take everyone on every list of

driver's license holders, and register them to vote

regardless of whether they want to be.''

By the way, there'll be felon re-enfranchisement too. At

that point, you have destroyed the integrity of the

registration process.

Now they will sell this very cleverly. They will say,

``Well, OK, ACORN did have some problems with voter

registration. We shouldn't have these third party rogue

groups out there. So let's put ACORN out of business. Let's

register everybody.''

Now the problem, of course, is there are a lot of

duplicates. And there are a lot of people on those rolls who

are illegal aliens. It's not a clean list. They don't care.

So, this is the issue you haven't heard about. There's a

reason you haven't heard about it. They don't want you to

hear about it.

The path between the day this bill is introduced and the

day it hits the House floor will probably be less than two

weeks. Get ready for it. You can stop it. Don't get me wrong.

But this is their stealth bill that is even more sneaky than

the health care bill.

Madam Speaker, on March 25th, when we will be in session I assume, an excellent organization known as Discovering Justice will present the Champion of Justice Award to a great advocate of fairness, Nonnie Burns. Nonnie Burns, I should say at the outset, is an old friend of many years, going back to the days when she was a strong supporter of mine when I first ran for the State Legislature in the Beacon Hill section of Boston in 1972. Since then, she has gone on to an extraordinarily distinguished career, first as an extremely respected judge in the Massachusetts trial courts, and then as the state's Commissioner of Insurance, a position from which she has since retired.

Throughout her career as an attorney, judge and commissioner, Nonnie Burns has exemplified the legal profession at its best--namely in a commitment to seeing that justice is done for all. It is entirely appropriate that Discovering Justice, housed I should note in the Federal Courthouse in Boston named for our beloved late colleague Joe Moakley, is honoring her. Discovering Justice educates young people about the justice system and what they can do to make sure that it functions as it should. They run a particularly large program called Children Discovering Justice, which Nonnie Burns inspired and which she has championed. The program for children in grades 1-5 is taught in 25% of the public schools in Boston.

Madam Speaker, I am proud to call Nonnie Burns a friend and grateful for the advice I have been able to get from her over the years. In particular, during her tenure as Insurance Commissioner, she was of significant value to those of us on the Financial Services Committee in her thoughtful and prompt responses to questions we had affecting insurance policy. I congratulate Discovering Justice for recognizing her value and presenting her with this award, which, as I noted, I will not be able to note in person because I will be here on the floor when the event goes forward.

Madam Speaker, the assertion that the economic recovery bill, the stimulus bill, has created no jobs is, I must say, one of the least intellectually supportable statements I have heard on this House floor, and I've been here a long time. There's an argument about how much and how little, but no competent economist denies that it helped create jobs.

Here's where we are: The fact is that the Obama recovery from the Bush recession has been going more slowly than many of us would like, but it is undeniable by every statistic it is going forward.

Now, if you listen to my Republican colleagues, you learn that the third worst day in American history was January 21, 2009. The worst day, of course, was Pearl Harbor, and then we had the terrible mass murders of 2001. But to pick a day when there were no mass deaths, what was the worst day? January 21, 2009, because according to this debate, guess what happened on January 21, 2009? The Federal budget, which was apparently in surplus, all of a sudden punched into deficit. Unemployment suddenly appeared. The war in Afghanistan, by the way, was going wonderfully until January 21, 2009. There were no bailouts until January 21, 2009. Some of you may have thought they happened in September of last year, but, no, apparently it all started on January 21, 2009.

And not only that--and I have to say I'm quoting my partner, Jim, here--it was one of the worst outbreaks of disease in American history. Mass amnesia seized the Republican Party on January 21, 2009. They forgot that the Bush recession started under President Bush in 2007, after they had controlled both the House and the Senate and the Presidency for the longest time. They forgot that the deficit had mushroomed under them. They forgot that trying to pay for two wars with five tax cuts was kind of a bad idea, and at least you shouldn't be surprised it resulted in a deficit.

So what we are now doing is trying to undo that. And adults understand that you cannot go from a terrible decline to rapid increase without passing through a transitional period. We are passing through it by every economic statistic.

Now, I agree the situation was worse than we thought, and it is getting better more slowly than we had hoped, but it is clearly getting better. And, again, if you listen to my Republican colleagues, the world began on January 21, 2009. I know some of them thought it started 4,000 years ago, and they didn't believe in evolution. I didn't think they thought it all started when Barack Obama became President.

We do try here to help. I was astounded to hear the gentleman from Michigan say it hasn't created one job. Madam Speaker, tell that to the cops and firefighters in my district who were rehired because of this. Tell that to the people now working to clean up a Superfund site in my district which was funded by this bill. This denial of reality to evade responsibility for the dilemma we are in is breathtaking.

So I want to congratulate the gentleman from Wisconsin, who has been the most consistent advocate of social fairness and economic effectiveness that we've had, for a wonderful bill.

I thank both of my colleagues. And the ranking member is exactly right in the concerns he has expressed, and that is why at the committee, the chairman of the subcommittee--Mr. Kanjorski and I tentatively agreed to this--we later heard some questions raised, in particular, someone I think for whom we all had an amount of respect, Denise Floyd Crawford, who's the longtime Texas securities administrator who really goes back four or five Texas administrations in a bipartisan way. And on behalf of the North American Securities Administration Association, she raised some concerns. And they were worried that this might, at some point, be too much of a delegation and therefore--and I appreciate the gentleman's comments--we agree with him that we do want to--our goal is to buff up investor protection.

Clearly, there's a role for FINRA. I think we may have gone a little too far in what we accepted in committee. But we're not talking about getting rid of it altogether. So I appreciate the reasonableness of what the gentleman from Alabama has said. It will be our role next year, if this bill passes, to monitor the SEC. I look forward to oversight hearings to make sure they're using their authority. And particularly, how best to allow the SEC to draw on the resources of FINRA will be high on our agenda.

Yes.

Madam Chair, I am very appreciative that two of the most constructive members of the committee, the gentleman from North Carolina and the gentleman from California, have been working together on this.

We have a mix here of policy difference, but then also some technical questions. Clearly, there was a difference on whether or not auto dealers should get some kind of exemption. The majority of the committee felt that the auto dealer situation was such--I would think particularly because of the stresses they have unfairly been recently subjected to by the chaos of the auto industry--that they did deserve some.

Once that question was resolved--I was in the minority on that, but it was resolved that they did--there were then technical issues about how to work it out. I am very pleased that two of our most thoughtful members are continuing a collaboration on this.

The manager's amendment had some improvement in this situation that was mutually agreed to, and there is room, I believe, for further conversation and refinement. And so I just want to express, first, my appreciation, and secondly, my willingness, to the extent my role as Chair of the committee would be relevant, to try to effectuate what they work out.

First, I would say to my friend from New Jersey, I very much agree with what he said about credit rating agencies. For the record, I would like to make an assertion I know he agrees with, that when he talks about our agreement on the CRAs and the role of the CRAs, we are talking about the credit rating agencies, not the Community Reinvestment Act, the other CRA with which we deal. Sometimes people don't pay full attention, so I don't want to get anybody too agitated.

Yes, he is exactly right. He and I, in fact, collaborated on the legislation to remove the statutory assertion. And I think he is also correct, we fully agree--I think there is virtually unanimity on it-- with the purpose he articulated, tell the average investor to pay attention on your own, don't rely on the rating agencies, don't subcontract your judgment to them.

Frankly, I am frustrated. I would hope that people out in the economy would take advantage of the full legal rights they have to create some buy side rating agencies. I think that would be very helpful. We checked. There are no obstacles to doing it. I had some frustration that we weren't able to do more. I think we have done as much as anybody could think of. I've seen some newspaper articles that said, Why didn't you do more? But they were, not surprisingly, absent of any suggestion. So, yes, I think it would be better if we had buy side rating agencies. In the interim, we have at least told people, use your own judgment.

But as the gentleman acknowledged--and I think we can work this out-- going forward, the problem we got was from a number of States and private institutions that have imbedded in their statutes the old language. And I am pleased the gentleman said let's work together. I think it would mean meeting with various State agencies and the pension funds to see if there is some legislative fix we could adopt short of going back to the old name, because I agree with him as to the purpose of changing the name so that we can alleviate this problem there.

So with that, I would be willing to say there is no need for the amendment, given that we have an agreement. We will ask our hardworking and very creative staffs that can often work very well together to meet with those who have raised this issue to see if there is something else we could do that would meet their concern so they wouldn't have to all amend their statutes, et cetera. And with that, I think we have come to a conceptual agreement. And as is often the case, we, the Members, will come to a conceptual agreement and the staff will do all the hard work of making it a reality.

Would the gentleman yield?

I would just say no one can dictate to anyone, but if there were to be a ``no'' on the voice vote, I think that would be a reasonable end to this particular discussion and we could then continue on the level we talked about.

Madam Chair, we keep hearing about these studies. They were commissioned by organizations ideologically opposed to this. Surprise, surprise, they got back the answers they wanted. I haven't seen them. No one has produced them. They are not worth anything. They are simply quantifications of ideology which are entitled to no weight.

I understand that there are people who do not like consumer regulation. What we learn is that in its absence, abuses can proliferate that become systemic problems, but it's especially relevant when we are dealing with the elderly.

We know there are people who preyed on older people. There are people eligible for this program in their eighties who had lives of hard work that did not include sophisticated involvement with financial instruments. There have been problems of abuse.

We, in fact, adopted, I think, without any opposition, a piece of legislation that said you cannot be the one that sells somebody a reverse mortgage and then becomes his or her investment adviser, because of abuses. Protecting the elderly against abuse shouldn't be controversial.

The gentleman from Texas really doesn't have anything to say against this amendment, but his instinct overcomes that, so he has to say negative things. Among them, though, the most outlandish is his continued effort to blame unemployment on President Obama.

President Obama inherited from President Bush a very serious recession. It turns out now the worst since the Great Depression. And it was begun officially by those who certified, the nonpartisan entities that do that, in December of 2007, after many years of Republican rule both in the House and the Senate and in the White House. Unemployment is decreasing now, and you don't go from very bad to perfect. But this effort to evade responsibility for the Republican policies that caused this recession is, as I said, one of the great examples of blame shifting.

I have to say again we suffered a great disease outbreak on January 21, 2009. Mass amnesia hit the Republican Party. The huge deficit, the lack of regulation that had brought about our financial collapse, the millions of jobs lost. The administration with the worst job record recently is the Bush administration. And the Obama recovery is slower than I wish it would be, but it is clearly on the upswing.

Secondly, the gentleman, to win his partisan points, will lash out at anything. Social Security, he announces now, is going bankrupt. Social Security, credited with all the money paid in, is sound for another 25 years or more. Frightening older people by the false claim that Social Security is going bankrupt is an example of partisanship run riot.

What we also have is this reluctance to accept the fact that we have language that says nothing here can go to perpetuate these institutions. He's right. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which the Republican Party----

In the 12 years of congressional Republican rule, they didn't do a thing about Fannie and Freddie. We did pass the bill the Bush administration asked us for in 2007. It was too late. But learning from that, we have language here that did not previously exist that bans the use of taxpayer funds, that bans the use of any funds to keep an institution going.

So, yes, unlike the Republicans, who did nothing about Fannie and Freddie in that 12 years, never passed a piece of legislation, we passed a piece of legislation and it was too late, but we've learned from it. And there is binding language here that directly contradicts everything the gentleman from Texas says, but he is not easily fazed by that language.

Will the gentleman yield?

Is the gentleman seriously advancing the argument that it was because the Democrats took over in 2007 that that was why we had a recession?

Madam Chair, I rise to claim the time in opposition.

I now yield 2 minutes to one of the most thoughtful members of the Financial Services Committee, whom we will greatly miss when he retires, the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moore).

Madam Chair, I now recognize a strong advocate of a responsible policy towards the business community, the

gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Bean) for 2 minutes.

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 30 seconds.

I yield myself 4\1/2\ minutes.

Madam Chair, the author of the amendment, I thought, began--or it was one of the speakers. Maybe it was the gentleman from Oklahoma who said we don't need a new agency. Well, he apparently didn't get too far into the bill.

On lines 7 through 10 of page 1, There is hereby established the Consumer Financial Protection Council as an independent establishment of the executive branch.

So it creates a new agency--a monstrous one. It is a 12-headed council which will have its own staff assigned under this amendment by Treasury. Then within each of the 12 agencies, a new position is created--a director of consumer affairs. So you will have 12 new positions staffed by the Treasury, with no limitations on how that's done, and this new council. It is also unwieldy.

One of the responsibilities of the consumer agency will be to issue rules to prevent the kind of abuse of mortgages that had such a contributing role to our crisis. This bill says, yes, there will be such rules. They will be adopted by the 12-member council. They will vote on those. The chairman of the Commodities Future Trading Commission will have a vote on setting mortgage rates. The chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission will help set mortgage rates. Other agencies without any particular involvement there will help set mortgage rates.

Now, the 12 agencies that make up this bureaucratic version of the Christmas song will include the agency that has more responsibility for consumer regulation today than any other--the Federal Reserve system. Those who have said, We don't like what the Federal Reserve does, should understand that the largest single loser of authority, by far, in the bill that the committee has brought forward is the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve has been the primary consumer regulator under this bill. It still will be under this amendment. The Federal Reserve will retain all of its powers because you have the council, but you also will have much of this done by the independent regulator.

So, if you think the Federal Reserve has done a good job as a consumer regulator and if you don't want to diminish its powers, then you ought to vote for this bill.

Our bill also doesn't just deal with the Federal powers. Frankly, we were respectful of the role of the community banks, which you have not heard from in large opposition over this. In fact, the independent community banks, until we get to bankruptcy, are going to be supportive of this bill. I understand they have a problem with that.

Much of the problem we have today is with the nonbanks--with the mortgages issued outside of banks, with the payday lenders, with the check cashers, with the people who do remittances. Many of them are honorable, but it's a largely unregulated operation. We give specific authority to regulate. What this says is the status quo is fine with regard to that. Arguably, the FTC has some jurisdiction over it. It hasn't been exercised very well.

So, if you want to do something about payday lenders and check cashers and remittances, then you'll want to vote for the committee version and not for this 12-member amendment. Maybe some of the new consumer directors in each of the 12 agencies will work this out, but you'll have

to wait for this 12-member body to vote on these things.

I do want to address one particular issue, which is: Well, what about safety and soundness? The notion that adequate consumer protection somehow detracts from safety and soundness is at the heart of some of our disagreement. In effect, what they are saying is, you know, we're going to have to water down consumer protection. If you get somebody who takes it seriously, it might impinge on safety and soundness. In fact, it has been the absence of consumer protection that has caused safety and soundness problems.

It was the refusal of the Federal Reserve, whose authority is preserved in the amendment of the gentleman from Idaho--they were given authority by this Congress in 1994 to regulate mortgages with the Homeowners Equity Protection Act. They flatly refused to use it. Because they would not do consumer protection, safety and soundness suffered. It didn't thrive.

There are other examples. The failure to adequately protect people in the credit card area contributes to problems. It does not diminish them. So the argument is very, very clear.

Now, it is true, by the way, that the Federal Reserve began to do some consumer protection recently, which was only after we started talking about this bill. This is explicitly what is in the bill. Implicitly what they are saying is: Keep consumer protection subordinated to bank regulation, and you will perpetuate the current problem.

I have one remaining speaker, and since I have the right to close, I will reserve the balance of my time.

Since I am the one and final speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer).

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

I claim the time in opposition.

I first yield myself 1 minute to say, we agree, no more bailouts. The Republicans cannot accept the fact that we have a bill that bans them. It specifically does not allow what happened.

Last year, Bush administration officials decided to use section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve to provide funds for the creditors of Bear Stearns and for AIG itself. That would not be legally possible under the bill we put forward.

Similarly, we have funds that come not from the taxpayers, but from an assessment on large financial institutions which can be used explicitly, not for any failed institution, but can be used when that institution is being put out of business in case it is necessary to prevent that failure from having negative destabilizing effects. The Republicans don't want to do that.

He said that the major difference is--another difference--we have a number of provisions in here to make it less likely that that will happen. Yes, if a big institution gets overly indebted and fails, it ought to be allowed to fail and we will have to deal with the consequences. But it would also be better not cavalierly to say, Let 'em fail. Let's try to stop it.

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Gutierrez).

If the gentleman would yield, I would say, yes, this is another example of the superiority over this bill to the Republican substitute, because the gentleman from Illinois took the lead in addressing the unfairness of having smaller banks have to contribute, we believe, disproportionately, to the insurance fund, because of the risky problems of big banks. He has got in here language that addresses that. It's one reason why the independent community bankers like our bill.

Yes, I will continue to work with him. I did want to do that now to stress that in this bill, as opposed to the Republican substitute, there is some redress. Big banks will have to pay more and smaller banks less because of the riskiness of what they do.

I thank the gentleman.

Yes. Again, if the gentleman would yield, this illustrates one other area where the legislation we have is far better and more responsive to the needs of small banks than the Republican bill. This improves on it, and I agree with him.

Madam Chair, I yield myself 1 minute.

From 1995 through 2006, when the Republicans controlled this House and the Senate, they did no legislation on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. It was the Republicans who didn't do it. The Republican House in 2005 passed a bill which the Republican Senate and the Republican President opposed. The chairman of the committee, Mr. Oxley, blamed them for doing it. In 2007, we did pass such a bill. And in 2004, it was President Bush unilaterally that pushed up substantially the affordable housing goals, including significantly for people under median income, which I opposed at the time.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Meeks).

I yield myself 30 seconds.

I want to point out that the gentleman conveniently forgets to say that the opposition came from his own Republican leadership. Yes, he offered an amendment in 2005, the only time that the Republicans let a bill come up, and he was defeated with the overwhelming vote of the Republicans as well as the Democrats. I wanted some reform that preserved rental housing.

Finally, in 2007, we in the majority passed a bill that was recommended. And in 2004, President Bush--and, yes, the affordable goals came in 1992--President Bush raised them from 42 to 54 percent over my objection. I thought it was imprudent and said so at the time.

Madam Chair, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski).

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time.

An example of the wildly excessive hyperbole that just came from the gentleman from New Jersey: increased regulation of derivatives; require overextended financial companies to have more capital; don't let people sell mortgages that will get people in trouble; and there will be no players on the field, there will be only refs. The cynical feeling that Republicans have toward regulation leads them to talk crazy.

My friend, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer) said you will need permission to get a car loan. No sane person, including Mr. Neugebauer, thinks that is true. As a matter of fact, over the objection of many of us, car loans are exempted from the bill he is widely exaggerating. So it is an inaccuracy built on an exaggeration.

What we have also is their great fear of not having in this bill the bailout that they want to attack. But before I get to that, let me take directly one of their arguments. The American people have said no more expansion of government. Not in the area certainly of financial regulation. Their view that the American people want no more restraints on Wall Street is wrong. Their view that the American people want nothing to be done about the form of executive compensation that is not only obscenely excessive, but destabilizing because of the way in which it is structured--so that is true, they do nothing effectively about executive compensation.

They say that the American people like derivatives to be spread out with no capital to back them up so when there are failures, you have trouble. And they carry through; they are right. I disagree vehemently that the American people think that the status quo with the financial industry was a good one.

One gentleman said, Well, you will increase the cost of capital. Yes, in some cases. I want to increase the cost of speculation. The problem with the way capital has been employed is it has been employed for useful purposes to gather up funds that could be used to produce goods and services; but for some, the means became the end. And yes, if we were to increase the cost of capital for some of the speculative trading that goes on, that would be a good thing. Less of that would be a good thing.

So let's put to the American people: Do you prefer the Republican position of doing literally nothing to rein in these abuses, or should we try to rein them in? And that leads to a difference in the bill. We are not simply in our bill saying let's deal with what happens when there is a failure. They say here in their bill, if there is a failure, let them go bankrupt and that's it.

We also say if there is an institution that is overextended, we let it fail and we have specific language that says no money can go to that institution or its shareholder or its board of directors. But unlike them, we don't think that you should wait until then. We don't think that it is responsible for society to say, Go ahead and fail; we don't care. We do care. We are not going to go to their aid the way it was done last year under section 13(3), which we have amended so it can't happen again, and you cannot have what the Bush administration did with 13(3) and the AIG. I don't think that they were wrong necessarily, but that is what they did. We stop that. But we think that you should step in and don't let them get to that point.

It is not healthy for society where you don't do anything about compensation, you don't do anything about derivatives, you don't regulate them at all, and you let them crash; but when they do crash, here is the argument: You have a permanent bailout fund.

Madam Chair, in their heads is the only place that permanent bailout fund exists. Well, maybe in their hearts, because it pains them to recognize that we have curtailed it.

Here's what the legislation actually says in a binding way and why their analogies to last year are so directly wrong.

Here is on page 397--I know it's a big bill, and maybe they couldn't get all the way through it. I apologize. We would have given them a reading guide if they had asked for it:

``There is established in the Treasury a separate fund to be known as the Systemic Dissolution Fund''--that's what they call the bailout fund--``to facilitate and provide for the orderly and complete dissolution of any failed financial company or companies that pose a systemic threat to the financial markets.'' And it pays the expenses of putting them out of business not from the taxpayers, but from an assessment on large financial companies; and that pains them.

They really do sympathize with Goldman Sachs, with JPMorgan Chase, with Morgan Stanley, with Bank of America, CitiCorp, yes, and hedge funds above $10 billion. We subject them to an assessment, and they say, Oh, we're so unfair. These wonderful, healthy companies, why should they have to pay for the bailouts? Because they have all been part of the system and they benefit from that safety net.

We go on to say, ``The Fund shall be available for use with respect to the dissolution of a covered financial company to cover the costs incurred by the receiver and to cover the costs of systematic stabilization actions. The Fund shall not be used in any manner to benefit any officer or director of such company.''

And it says earlier on when we talk about the establishment of that fund, on page 288, it can only be used, the money that comes from Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, the objects of Republican sympathy. The poor dears; they won't have enough money to speculate and we won't have anybody to come and play football because they have been told not to speculate.

It says that they can only do this if such action is necessary for the purpose of financial stability and not for the purpose of preserving the covered financial company. And if there is a loan from taxpayers, it makes it very clear: Any funds from taxpayers shall be repaid--that's a loan--shall be repaid by a fixed assessment from these big companies; that the shareholders do not receive payment until other claims have been fully paid; and no payments are made to creditors until the taxpayers get their money back.

We ask that the substitute be rejected.

I rise to speak in opposition to the motion to recommit.

First, for those who might have believed that when the Republicans supported the Minnick amendment, or when they offered a substitute, that they said that was a better way to regulate, for those who might have believed that somebody meant that, here's the proof that it was all a sham.

The Republicans have the right to offer a recommit motion. They could have put anything they wanted in it. Here's what it says about consumer protection of our Minnick or about their way of dealing with other issues: ``Strike all after the enacting cause.''

The Republican motion now embodies their approach to protecting consumers and regulating derivatives and restricting leverage and letting companies go out of business. It consists of ``strike all after the enacting clause.'' They could have taken the Minnick amendment and made it part of the recommit. They could have taken their substitute and made it part of the recommit.

What the recommit does, what the gentleman from Pennsylvania I think forgot to mention, I understand there is a lot of pressure when you are reading the script here, but he forgot to mention that the recommit motion kills all regulatory reform--dead; gone. There's no regulatory reform.

I see my friend from Texas there. He's kind of rubbing his head. His

amendment is gone. There's no Paul amendment. If they wanted to help Mr. Paul and they wanted to look into the Fed, why isn't that in here? ``Strike all after the enacting clause,'' that's what Mr. Paul gets from them.

So let's be clear that it is, first of all, a cover. They use anger over the TARP to frankly make sure we'll need another one because they kill all regulation.

Secondly, even as to the TARP, here's my difference: The minority leader came to the well and said TARP was passed to be an emergency bill and the emergency is over. You cannot directly address a Member, so let me say, Mr. Speaker, will someone tell the minority leader it ain't over until it's over on Main Street all throughout America. Maybe when the Republicans had that meeting with a group of financial lobbyists, they took some time out to celebrate the ending of an emergency, but most of us know the emergency is not over. I didn't say ``ain't'' again. The emergency continues.

And here's what the administration has proposed: Under the Bush administration--and I voted for TARP. I thought that the lack of regulation created a crisis. But the big banks got the first TARP money. We are now finally succeeding in getting TARP money for smaller banks who can do community lending and small business lending. We voted today to take $3 billion and give it as loans to people who can't pay their mortgages because they're unemployed. Not people who got mortgages they shouldn't have gotten. Not subprime mortgages. Hardworking people who can't pay a mortgage. The $3 billion would go for that to help them avoid foreclosure, and they can pay it back when they get the job. That's gone. So the antisocial parts of TARP are okay and now they want to get rid of the other parts.

By the way, who are they saving money for here? Their friends, the big banks. The original TARP legislation said at the end of the day, any TARP shortfall will be made up by an assessment on the financial community. We've gone further than that. The amendment we adopted, over Republican opposition, by the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Peters) instructs the FDIC, in this bill that they want to kill, not surprisingly, to assess the financial institutions to make up any shortfall from the TARP. They kill that. They complained before about our assessment. They are very upset that we might levy on JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs and the others some responsibility financially for what's gone on.

So here's what they do: First of all, they kill all reform, and their pretense that they are for a different form of it, they deliberately left it out of their bill. They were just playing it.

They, secondly, say now that TARP money has gone to the big banks-- and they don't have to pay it back, by the way, under this bill necessarily--and we are trying to use it socially to encourage lending, to give it to community banks with some requirement they lend to help people who are unemployed avoid having foreclosure until they get their jobs back. Now they want to get rid of it, and to whose benefit? The big banks.

The question is, should we use TARP money to give to the small banks for community banking? Should we use TARP money to help people avoid unemployment? Or should we do what they want to do and give it back so that the big financial institutions aren't assessed? That's what's at risk here. Not the taxpayers. The taxpayers are not on the hook for this TARP money. The large financial institutions are.

And I know what they say: It will be a restriction in capital. Well, I think capital's a good thing. But to the extent that capital was misused for speculation, that it was misused for unleveraged credit default swaps, then a little reining in is a good thing.

But, once again, here's what you have: a bill, a motion, that says let's not do anything to change the financial system. Let's let companies go bankrupt and not worry about them. Let's not have anything about derivatives. Let's just do nothing and instead let's save the big banks from having to pay their fair share when the TARP is repaid.

Madam Chair, I rise to offer amendment No. 1.

Madam Chair, I yield 30 seconds to my colleague from Massachusetts (Ms. Tsongas).

I will now yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy).

If the gentlewoman will yield, as the gentlewoman knows, there was a clerical glitch at the last minute so that we missed by a very narrow margin a submission time for the Rules Committee. And what I am glad to have the chance to do now is to agree with the gentlewoman, who has been working diligently on this, that this language will go if we have anything to say about it, as we will, into the conference report.

So the answer is yes.

Madam Chair, I reserve the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

We are trying here to prevent fraud in the various programs. In the subprime mortgage bill, which we are reenacting here, which the House voted on, we put in some very strict restrictions against people who had a pattern or a history of fraud. But the gentleman from Maryland pointed out quite correctly that it was overly rigid, that it excluded, in the case of someone he knew, someone who many, many years ago had been involved in an unrelated situation where culpability was uncertain, there was a criminal conviction, and what this does is to provide some needed flexibility for minor offenses that were long ago.

I thank the gentleman for calling it to our attention. We were pleased to be able to make this change.

Madam Chair, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Miller), who is an important author of much of this bill.

Madam Chair, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt), a major shaper of the best parts of this bill.

Madam Chair, I now yield 2\1/2\ minutes to one of the strongest advocates of fairness and equity, and critics of lack of action to stop the foreclosure process, the gentlewoman from California, the Chair of the Housing Subcommittee, Ms. Waters.

What is the time remaining on both sides, please, Madam Chair?

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Perlmutter), who hasn't had enough floor time this week.

If the gentleman would yield, with regard to the permanent audit team, they may be the largest institutions, and that is a somewhat separate question, but for those who don't have a permanent audit team, not only would it be better for the regulated entity, it would be better for the CFPA. As any agency, they will have limited resources. If you have a bank that has $13-, $14-, $17 billion in assets and has had a good record, as most of those banks have had in consumer affairs, it would be a great waste of regulatory resources to be doing that when they would have the option, instead, of simply sending a CFPA member to join the other team.

So, yes, I would hope that the CFPA would take full advantage of this authority with those banks.

Madam Chair, I yield myself just 10 seconds to say that one of the Members whose business experience and general good judgment has been a very major asset for us is that of the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Bean). She has had a very significant and positive impact on this bill.

I will now yield her 2 minutes.

I yield the gentlewoman an additional 15 seconds.

I will yield myself my remaining time.

How much is that?

I sympathize with the loss my Republican colleagues feel that we don't give a bailout for them, but this bill clearly repudiates it. First, they just today, as they did yesterday, made an issue out of the fact that we do include some bankruptcy, but their whole issue was bankruptcy. As the gentleman from Colorado said, there is nothing in their bill that prevents this from being extended ad infinitum under bankruptcy. Technically, we do have some time limitations, but that's part of bankruptcy.

Here is what we do say. If, in fact, the FDIC would decide with a failed institution to keep it going, it would do it without any funds. On page 397, there is established a separate fund to facilitate and provide for the orderly and complete dissolution of any failed financial company that poses a taxpayer threat.

Page 399, the fund shall be available to cover the costs incurred by the corporation as a receiver, repay such funds, cover the cost of systematic stabilization actions, not for the entity.

Then in 288, the corporation, such action--they shall only get involved if they think it's--they can only spend the money if it is necessary for the purpose of financial stability and not for the purpose of preserving the covered financial company. Yes, we are saying that in some cases, in a very

complex institution, you may not be able to wipe it out in a year. That's what was pointed it to us. If you wiped it out prematurely, you may find yourself costing more money, not to the institution, in severance pay and other things for employees. This is very clear.

By the way, as to the permanence of this, the authority to borrow here is sunsetted in 2013. Yes, there will be a fund of assessment from private financial institutions. I know the Republicans do not want us to discommode the major financial institutions for this.

We levy on them for money that can be used. If a major institution fails, then the money can be used to manage that failure in a reasonable way. The biggest difference is that we try to stop the failure and they do nothing to try to stop it.

Parliamentary inquiry.

Well, when a Member says he is reserving his time to close, is it permissible to split it? I just, for the future of the bill, want to know that. I had assumed the gentleman was closing, and I thought only one Member closes.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, I offer this statement to indicate that I agree with the interpretation of the Gentleman from North Carolina regarding his interpretation of the secured creditor haircut portion of the Manager's Amendment. Apparently, there are some people who feel that, even with the improvements to this provision in the Manager's Amendment, there are some who might interpret this incorrectly, and I would agree with the Gentleman that very explicit language reaffirming this interpretation could usefully be added at conference time.

Madam Chair, working with the chairman of the Agriculture Committee has been very constructive, and we have enjoyed that working relationship, and I am very proud that our committees have avoided the kind of jurisdictional disputes that too often plague this place.

We have a couple of issues here: One, should there be an end user exemption, et cetera? Two, whether you agree or not, it certainly shouldn't be one that could be manipulated. So this is to make sure that this is there.

Finally, I do want to respond to the gentleman from New Jersey. Apparently, they discovered that jobs are being lost. In fact, the reason that jobs are being lost now and were being lost at an even greater rate last year is the economic disaster that came from a lack of regulation. So the argument that by putting in place regulations that will prevent the enormous economic disaster, which officially began with the recession in 2007, will somehow cause job loss is bizarre-o-world. Job loss was brought about by the lack of regulation, which we are trying to correct.

It is true that the Republican position is: Leave business alone. Let them continue to do whatever they think is right. Don't have any regulation.

That's how we got into this mess.

Madam Chair, I disagree with the premise that the large financial investment houses and large financial institutions have earned the degree of trust that our voting against this amendment would require.

We were fairly careful, and there were many who were critical because we were too willing to separate out end users, legitimate end users, and not sweep them all in; but for that to be justified, there has to be integrity in the administration of the process. That is what the last amendment by the gentleman of Minnesota did, and that is what this amendment does.

If you let people who have a financial interest in there not being clearing be in charge of clearing, it would take an extraordinarily selfless group of people not to give in to temptation.

While people on Wall Street have been giving varying descriptions, some good and some bad, no one has yet compared any of them to Mother Teresa. The fact is that if you reject this amendment, you are giving people who have an incentive to make these things not work well control over them.

Madam Chair, I rise to take the time in opposition to the amendment.

The gentleman from New Jersey has fairly laid this out. Here is the difference: We have agreed that end users should have an exemption from these requirements, but there is an exemption to the exemption.

If an end user is engaged in an activity that can cause financial problems, then we want them not to be exempt from regulation, but here is the difference. The bill that is in there now, and it differs from the Agriculture bill, says if the end user is causing financial losses and problems at a particular counterparty, then you should not have the exemption.

The alternative is to say no, let's not step in if this or that or many counterparties are in problems until it could become a systemic risk. We don't want to wait for systemic risk. I don't want to wait until people are at the edge of the cliff to start to pull them back.

It is clear to many of us that a lack of regulation of derivatives was the problem. I support an end user exemption. But when an end user is employing that exemption in a way that puts counterparties at risk, I don't want to have to wait until a cataclysm impends. I would like there to be the ability to step in and stop it at that point.

For the end user, it is very simple. They can avoid this regulation by being careful about what they do with the counterparties. This does not take it away; it simply says to the end user, please be careful and use some prudence before you engage in a transaction with a counterparty who will be at risk and could begin the kind of chain that we hope would not happen.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I have only one more speaker, and I have the right to close, so I reserve.

Madam Chairman, I apologize to the body. I do have an additional speaker, so I now yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Peterson).

Now I am going to close. I reserve.

Madam Chairman, how much time have I remaining?

I'm afraid my friend from New York has greatly overstated the case. There is no debate here--there is elsewhere--about whether or not there should be an end user exemption.

As he knows, our bill gives an end user exemption. The gentleman from Minnesota and I worked hard to do that, and we are not trying to take it away. In fact, both versions of this say that an end user exemption can be forfeited for certain economic circumstances.

So the question is not whether there should be an end user exemption. Yes, there should be. It is what should trigger that not to be there. The amendment says a systemic risk. We say, given the volatility of this instrument, derivatives, given the uncertainty, that waits too long to say no. That allows caution to be absent for too long a time. We should not wait until the car's about to go over the cliff to test the brakes. We say let's stop a good ways back. And it's entirely within the control of the end user.

What this says is, if you are an end user, do not impose on your counterparty the likelihood of significant loss, because a loss here and a loss there and a loss in another place cumulates to a problem. And if they say, well, it's too hard to tell, that's exactly our point. Don't make it hard to tell. Know who you're dealing with. Don't engage in transactions with counterparties when you aren't in a position to gauge their financial responsibility. Don't use the exemption you have from our regulation that applies to the financial speculators to engage in imprudent transactions, not just imprudent for you, but imprudent for the other guy, because what we've learned is it is important these are mutual events, and that's precisely the issue. Yes, there should be an end user exemption, but end users who disregard prudence and engage in transactions with people who don't have the money to back that up are potentially inflicting a harm on the system.

Now, the proponents of the amendment agree that we should take away that exemption if the system is harmed, but they wait too late to avert disaster.

I offer amendment No. 7.

Madam Chair, this amendment was something that was requested very much by the regulators who administer this approach, and it would allow them, but not mandate, that margin or collateral requirements be set.

Once again, we have accepted here an exemption for end users over the objection of many who think we have gone too far. But we are dealing here with an inexact science, and we would have the regulators be able--under this amendment, not required, but able--to set margin requirements. It would allow them to be set, margin or collateral requirements, in noncash. That's very important. It would not require people who are using this to hedge commercial risks to sell things to come up with the cash. And if, in fact, they were doing this in a prudent way and they posted noncash collateral, there would be no great problem because this noncash collateral could be still used for its other purposes.

So the question is should we say that the regulators, the CFTC and the SEC, should be denied what they have asked for, which is the right to impose the margin or collateral requirements in those cases of lighter regulation where they think this is important to avoid the kind of imbalances we had before.

The purpose is, of course, to prevent again the situation where one party or the other makes commitments it is unable to live up to. And this is a requirement--this is an empowerment of the regulators to act where they think there's a problem to prevent this from happening.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I will yield myself 1 minute to say I'll accept the way the gentleman from New Jersey put it. Should we give the regulators more power? That is the constant theme dividing us.

We look, many of us, at what happened over the past 15 years and say there was too little regulatory action, partly because some regulators who had the power wouldn't use it, like Mr. Greenspan at the Federal Reserve and some in the SEC, but partly because there was not sufficient regulatory powers. This is discretionary with the CFTC and

Again, the question is whether we should decide now that there will never be such a requirement. As to it costing a lot of money, the amendment specifically says that they should be allowed to use noncash collateral. That means they could pledge certain of their own assets, which could mean no cost.

It also says that the regulators shall impose the requirements commensurate with the risk involved in the transaction. Once again, we give incentives here for people to minimize risk, and I think that's the appropriate market approach.

We are, as I said, mandating these to be imposed. We are allowing them to be a noncash collateral, and we said they should be commensurate with risk.

The opposition argument is never. There will never be such a thing. There are no imprudent end users. There is no need ever to have them. The failure of trades in an individual case can be a problem for an individual company. They can cumulate. And that is the question: Do we say that we are willing to go forward with this issue with no power in any regulator to say that particular trades are being conducted in an imprudent fashion?

Because if they are conducted in an imprudent fashion, there is no power here because any margin requirement must be commensurate with risk. We have stricken the notion. The gentleman from Minnesota raised that point. There was at some point some language that we had that said it had to be greater than zero. We said, no, it does not have to be greater than zero, it is commensurate with risk.

And that is the issue. We are being asked to say we have complete confidence that there will never be the kind of imprudent trades that could begin to cause trouble in the system, and therefore, we will deny the regulators the power even to consider this.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Chair, pursuant to section 4 of House Resolution 964, I request that amendment No. 11 be considered out of order. If I may elaborate, it is for the purpose of en blocing some amendments.

I support the amendment, but I do have to comment on this job issue.

Once again, it is clear that January 21, 2009, saw a mass disease outbreak--prolonged, profound Republican amnesia. The gentleman from Texas says, under this administration, we've lost jobs. Yes. The Obama recovery from the Bush recession has been slower than we had hoped, but it has begun.

According to the official National Bureau of Economic Research, the Bush recession began in 2007. Large job losses happened under the Bush administration and as a continuation of the Bush policies. We have finally begun to slow down the job loss.

The notion that it is because our economic recovery plan was passed that job loss has continued is, of course, economic illiteracy of the highest sort. The problem is that you do not immediately turn things around. Most economic analysts agree that the economic recovery program has slowed down the rate of job loss, and we have begun to turn it around.

When the gentleman from Texas and other Republicans blame Obama for the Bush mistakes, it's not going to be allowed to go unrebutted.

Madam Chair, the SEC has recognized the potential problems for people under $75 million. They are not now subjected to this. The question is not whether they should be immediately put under this, but whether they should be given a permanent exemption without giving us a chance to have the SEC continue its development of more appropriate rules. The notion that no such requirement should apply, there is an absolutism here that seems to me in error.

Yes, the SEC should treat companies at $75 million and below differently than people that are at a billion dollars and above, et cetera. But they are in the process of doing this. This is an exemption that is unnecessary at this time. If and when the SEC decides that it is ready to cover them and Members here think that they haven't done an adequate job of providing for it, a motion like this might be in order.

I understand the desire of people to help smaller businesses. But at this point it is a license for people who might want to be abusive by guaranteeing them that they will never be audited despite any effort to make an appropriate audit.

Parliamentary inquiry, Madam Chairman.

Is it not in order for the gentleman from California to offer his amendment now?

If the gentleman would yield, that was also in the manager's amendment, so it will not be offered. It's in the manager's amendment.

Madam Chairman, I claim the time in opposition.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kilroy), a very diligent member of the committee.

I yield the gentlewoman an addition 30 seconds.

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski).

Madam Chair, I know the gentleman from Texas likes to blame everything bad that happened starting on January 21; there was no Bush recession; there was no deterioration in the war in Afghanistan; there was no TARP under Bush, but he's particularly trying to do it now because here's what he's doing: He's trying to defend an amendment that would give legal immunity to the rating agencies. I cannot think of a more counterintuitive and counterproductive thing to do.

The gentleman from California--I thought I heard him say--we don't want them practicing defensive ratings. Yeah, we do, because they have been practicing very offensive ratings. Here are the rating agencies that everybody agrees have been a major cause of the problems, and what do the Republicans want to do? Protect the poor dears from people suing them by a standard of gross negligence so that an investor who relies on their judgment has no remedy whatsoever.

Yes, we want the rating agencies to be a lot more careful. We want the rating agencies to fear that if they overestimate--here's the problem: We have a business model where the rating agencies are paid by the people they rate. I wish we could encourage people on the buy side to do that. We've certainly encouraged them in any way we can.

But as long as you have rating agencies paid by the people they rate--and the only people who would sue them now are the people who they rate. So they can only be sued if people thought they were too low. There's nobody who has the right to sue them if they thought they were too high--and of course we have done that in this bill.

But here's what it comes down to. If you want to protect the rating agencies from being legally liable for their gross negligence to hurt investors, vote for this amendment.

Madam Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that, during further consideration of H.R. 4173 pursuant to House Resolution 964, the amendments numbered 1 and 36 may be considered as modified by the respective forms at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, pursuant to the authority granted to me under the rule, I offer amendments en bloc.

Mr. Chairman, these are 10 amendments that raise in merit from wonderful to at least acceptable, and I will be reserving the balance of my time; and I will yield time, or they can get their own time, to any one of the offerers who wishes to explain his or her amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New York (Mr. Murphy), the author of one of the amendments.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I would just take this opportunity to announce if there are any Members here who think we are going to do any further business, that we're not. We will resume tomorrow morning. I will inform the Members as a result of what we have been able to do with some of the manager's amendments and this en blocing, and I appreciate the cooperation of the gentleman from Texas and others, we have, I believe, 11 amendments left to be offered tomorrow.

Two of them will take a longer time, one on the CFPA, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency; one on the Republican substitute; and then there will be a recommit. So we should be, obviously, finishing this bill sometime early tomorrow afternoon. We will come back in tomorrow and resume the debate, and I wanted Members to know that.

Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the Committee do now rise.