Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, for much of the past decade, we have had a debate between those calling for substantial deregulation in the financial markets, and those of us who are concerned that we did not have sufficient regulation to deal with the powerful innovations that we have seen in that market recently. Recent experience, in which disarray in the financial markets due in part to an absence of sensible regulation has led to serious economic problems in the world, very much strengthens the argument for appropriate public intervention that

seeks to preserve the advantages of recent innovations while diminishing the harm that they have caused. Earlier this week, Horst Kohler, a man of significant experience in the financial world, and not one previously suspected of radicalism in any degree, spoke out strongly to emphasize that ``We need more severe and efficient regulation, higher capital requirements to underpin financial trades, more transparency and a global institution to independently oversee the stability of the international financial system.''

Madam Speaker, reasonable people can differ with Mr. Kohler on some of the specifics, and on how they would be constituted. But the voice from this respected, experienced participant at the highest levels of the financial system should be heeded. It is truly time for us to work together here in the U.S. and in cooperation with legislators and regulators in other countries, to put in place the kind of system that Horst Kohler calls for, one in which we can try to increase the benefits of innovation while diminishing the damage that unchecked activity can cause.

Madam Speaker, I note that among the areas that Mr. Kohler calls on us to address is what he calls ``the grotesquely high compensation of individual finance managers.'' In this connection, it should also be noted that Joaquin Almunia, Monetary Affairs Commissioner of the European Union, also recently noted that ``When we talk about wage moderation and the need to link wage increases with productivity increases, then we also have to say something about levels of remuneration that sometimes don't seem to reflect productivity'' for top executives.

I ask that this important contribution to the debate about financial services regulation be printed here.

German President Lashes Out at ``Monster'' Market and Its Bankers

(By Bertrand Benoit and James Wilson)

Global financial markets have of become ``a monster'' that

``must be put back in its place'', the German president has

said, comparing bankers with alchemists who were responsible

for ``massive destruction of assets''.

In some of the toughest comments by a leading European

politician since the start of the subprime crisis, Horst

Kohler--a former head of the International Monetary Fund--

called for tougher regulations and the reconstruction of a

``continental European banking culture''.

Mr. Kohler singled out excessive executive pay, the focus

of much public resentment against top managers, as a factor

in the subprime crisis and accused bankers of acting

irresponsibly.

``The complexity of financial products and the possibility

to carry out huge leveraged trades with little [of their] own

capital have allowed the monster to grow . . . also

responsible [is] the grotesquely high compensation of

individual finance managers.''

Mr. Kohler's words will revive memories of the 2005 remarks

by Franz Muntefering, then German vice-chancellor, who

attached hedge funds as ``swarms of locusts'' whose ``profit-

maximizing strategies inspired by international competition''

posed ``a danger to our democracy.''

The comments from Mr. Kohler came as European Union finance

ministers ratcheted up the pressure over boardroom pay--

describing excessive remuneration as ``scandalous''.

``When we talk about wage moderation and the need to link

wage increases with productivity increases, then we also have

to say something about levels of remuneration that sometimes

don't seem to reflect productivity,'' sand Joaquin Almunia,

EU monetary affairs commissioner.

Bankers ``have made huge mistakes'', Mr. Kohler told Stern

magazine, published today. Referring to the subprime crisis,

he said: ``I am still waiting for a clear, audible mea culpa.

The only good thing about this crisis is that it has made

clear to any thinking, responsible person in the sector that

international financial markets have developed into a monster

that must be put back in its place.

``We need more severe and efficient regulation, higher

capital requirements to underpin financial trades, more

transparency and a global institution to independently

oversee the stability of the international financial system.

I have already suggested that the IMF assume this role.''

Madam Speaker, it has been common for those who support increased trade without any accompanying policies to address the impact on foreign and domestic workers to dismiss arguments for such policies as mere protectionism, lacking any economic justification.

In the Financial Times, Monday May 5th, one of the leading economists in the country, former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, refutes this effort to dismiss our concerns. As former Secretary Summers says, some of the ``opposition to trade agreements and economic internationalism more generally, reflect a growing recognition by workers that what is good for the global economy and its business champions was not necessarily good for them, and that there were reasonable grounds for this belief.''

Lawrence Summers has been and is a strong supporter of increased trade. But unlike many others who have stuck with a far less sophisticated analysis, ignoring contemporary reality, Secretary Summers explains why the current globalized economy means that trade can have a negative impact on some workers in higher wage countries. As he notes, ``in an open economy, where investments in innovation, brands, a strong corporate culture or even in certain kinds of equipment can be combined with labour from anywhere in the world, workers no longer have the same stake in productive investment by companies as it becomes easier for corporations to combine their capital with lower priced labour overseas. . . . Moreover businesses can use the threat of relocating as a lever to extract concessions. . . . Inevitably the cost of these concessions is borne by labour.''

Madam Speaker, the economic explanation given by Secretary Summers is not meant by him as an argument against trade, but rather as an argument for accompanying continued expansion of trade with appropriate public policies that deal with some of these effects, and recognize that while trade has overall beneficial effects for the economy, the distribution of the costs and benefits are far from uniform. And the New York Times for Tuesday, May 6th, illustrates the economic reality that gives rise to the political opposition to increased trade and internationalization that Secretary Summers notes--as the Times article of that date noted, ``In inflation adjusted terms . . . weekly wages have slipped by 1.3 percent since late 2006.''

Madam Speaker, I strongly urge leaders in the business community and others who would like to see further progress towards internationalization to read and understand Secretary Summers' economic analysis, and the very thoughtful public policy recommendations he includes that stem from this analysis. And because I can think of no more important contribution to the debate about economic policy in America, I ask that Secretary Summers' very important essay be printed here.

[From the Financial Times, May 5, 2008]

A Strategy To Promote Healthy Globalisation

(By Lawrence Summers)

Last week, in this column, I argued that making the case

that trade agreements improve economic welfare might no

longer be sufficient to maintain political support for

economic internationalism in the U.S. and other countries.

Instead, I suggested that opposition to trade agreements, and

economic internationalism more generally, reflected a growing

recognition by workers that what is good for the global

economy and its business champions was not necessarily good

for them, and that there were reasonable grounds for this

belief.

The most important reason for doubting that an increasingly

successful, integrated global economy will benefit U.S.

workers (and those in other industrial countries) is the

weakening of the link between the success of a nation's

workers and the success of both its trading partners and its

companies. This phenomenon was first emphasised years ago by

Robert Reich, the former U.S. labour secretary. The normal

argument is that a more rapidly growing global economy

benefits workers and companies in an individual country by

expanding the market for exports. This is a valid

consideration. But it is also true that the success of other

countries, and greater global integration, places more

competitive pressure on an individual economy. Workers are

likely disproportionately to bear the brunt of this pressure.

Part of the reason why U.S. workers (or those in Europe and

Japan) enjoy high wages is that they are more highly skilled

than most workers in the developing world. Yet they also earn

higher wages because they can be more productive--their

effort is complemented by capital, broadly defined to include

equipment, managerial expertise, corporate culture,

infrastructure and the capacity, for innovation. In a closed

economy anything that promotes investment in productive

capital necessarily raises workers'

wages. In a closed economy, corporations have a huge stake in

the quality of the national workforce and infrastructure.

The situation is very different in an open economy where

investments in innovation, brands, a strong corporate culture

or even in certain kinds of equipment can be combined with

labour from anywhere in the world. Workers no longer have the

same stake in productive investment by companies as it

becomes easier for corporations to combine their capital with

lower priced labour overseas. Companies, in turn, come to

have less of a stake in the quality of the workforce and

infrastructure in their home country when they can produce

anywhere. Moreover businesses can use the threat of

relocating as a lever to extract concessions regarding tax

policy, regulations and specific subsidies. Inevitably the

cost of these concessions is borne by labour.

The public policy response of withdrawing from the global

economy, or reducing the pace of integration, is ultimately

untenable. It would generate resentment abroad on a dangerous

scale, hurt the economy as other countries retaliated, and

make us less competitive as companies in rival countries

continue to integrate their production lines with developing

countries. As Bill Clinton said in his first major

international economic speech as president, ``the United

States must compete not retreat''.

The domestic component of a strategy to promote healthy

globalisation must rely on strengthening efforts to reduce

inequality and insecurity. The international component must

focus on the interests of working people in all countries, in

addition to the current emphasis on the priorities of global-

corporations.

First, the U.S. should take the lead in promoting global

co-operation in the international tax arena. There has been a

race to the bottom in the taxation of corporate income as

nations lower their rates to entice business to issue more

debt and invest in their jurisdictions. Closely related is

the problem of tax havens that seek to lure wealthy citizens

with promises that they can avoid paying taxes altogether on

large parts of their fortunes. It might be inevitable that

globalisation leads to some increases in inequality; it is

not necessary that it also compromise the possibility of

progressive taxation.

Second, an increased focus of international economic

diplomacy should be to prevent harmful regulatory

competition. In many areas it is appropriate that regulations

differ between countries in response to local circumstances.

But there is a reason why progressives in the early part of

the 20th century sought to have the federal government take

over many kinds of regulatory responsibility. They were

concerned that competition for business across states, and

their ease of being able to move, would lead to a race to the

bottom. Financial regulation is only one example of where the

mantra of needing to be ``internationally competitive'' has

been invoked too often as a reason to cut back on regulation.

There has not been enough serious consideration of the

alternative--global co-operation to raise standards. While

labour standards arguments have at times been invoked as a

cover for protectionism, and this must be avoided, it is

entirely appropriate that U.S. policymakers seek to ensure

that greater global integration does not become an excuse for

eroding labour rights.

To benefit the interests of U.S. citizens and command

broadpolitical support, US international economic policy will

need to focus on the issues in which the largest number of

Americans have the greatest stake. A decoupling of the

interests of businesses and nations may be inevitable; a

decoupling of international economic policies and the

interests of American workers is not.

Mr. Chairman, I move to lay the appeal on the table.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak in opposition to the motion to recommit.

Mr. Speaker, I hope we are here seriously to legislate. The effect of adopting this will be to make it much less likely that veterans will get the preference. Now I understand the frustration of Members on the other side. The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. McCotter) offered an amendment yesterday, notwithstanding any other preferences, first priority to veterans, members of the Armed Forces on active duty, members of the National Guard or Armed Forces reserves, school teachers and emergency responders. That is now in the bill. That is part of the bill.

The gentleman phrased his motion as ``promptly.'' Now we have already seen the kind of delay tactics that the minority has been prone to use. Send this back to committee, and you are very unlikely to get it back on the floor in a way in which we can pass it. So last night we adopted preference for veterans. Today, in the guise of redoing what we have already done, a motion is offered that will keep veterans from benefiting from that preference because the bill won't go anywhere.

The gentleman was honest. He began by saying he doesn't like this bill. And since a head-on assault will not pass--no, I will not yield. I will explain why I won't yield. I won't yield because I have consistently, when I was chairing the committee, been open to amendments. I have yielded. But when at the last minute with zero notice something is drafted with no chance to discuss it, and they use their full 5 minutes, of course I won't give up the small amount of time we have. It is already inadequate to discuss this.

So this will prevent the veterans from getting the preferences they already have. You have seen what can happen with these delays. We have preference for veterans in this bill.

Now let me say procedurally, if this had said ``forthwith,'' I would have been less concerned about it. But there is also this: during the markup of this bill, we accepted nine Republican amendments. Yesterday we accepted several Republican amendments. If I was seriously interested in helping the people who are to be the beneficiaries,

I would have offered an amendment at the Rules Committee, and we would have accepted it. I would not have waited to say ``promptly'' so that I would have used the disabled veterans as a way to kill the bill.

Similarly, with regard to mortgage fraud--and by the way, this is through the cities. If you think that the cities are going to give out money to rapists, worry about it.

I would be prepared, if this would have been put forward in an orderly way so we could vet it and not have unintended consequences as we did with the last recommit on a bill from our committee, we could have accepted it.

As we go forward, and let me say further in conference with the Senate, yes, I think we ought to make it explicit that people with mortgage fraud don't get it, as well as certain kinds of sex offenders. Yes, I think we can do these things, and we will do them going forward.

But to take it now with a ``promptly,'' designed to kill the bill, and it will in fact undo, take back the veterans' preferences we gave yesterday, and to use disabled veterans and to use concern for the law as a cover to kill a bill for which the votes do not exist to kill it is the wrong way to go.

We have amended this bill. Nine amendments were accepted in committee. None of these were offered. Had they been, they would have substantially been accepted, and they can be accepted going forward. But you have seen, my colleagues, what has gone on here. Send this back to committee, we have to go back to committee. We have rules to deal with. You have a crowded agenda in the committee. You will not see this bill again probably for weeks, and we will again have these tactics.

The gentleman from Georgia is going to raise the point that it can come out the next day. It cannot. The rules of the House do not allow it. And anyone who thinks you are going to get unanimous consent from this group to waive four and five rules is not paying attention. After we just had two votes on an appeal of a ruling, a frivolous appeal, and we get an appeal of the appeal because people didn't like the wording on the board, you tell me if you think we are going to get serious legislative efforts.

So, yeah, I want veterans preferences in the bill. Going forward, we can address this. But Members who are worried about some kind of ad long before your election, the sensible parts of this will be embodied in the bill. You will have a chance to vote to protect against mortgage fraud, et cetera. But vote for this today.

And as the gentleman from Arizona made clear, he doesn't like the bill. And I understand the problem the President has. The administration can't decide whether it wants to sign or veto. There are internal debates, so it falls to our Republican colleagues to save this President from having to make the decision.

I urge my colleagues not to fall for that partisan ploy. Vote down this effort to delay, and perhaps delay indefinitely this bill. We will, going forward, take the good parts of it and incorporate it. Had they been substantially offered seriously before, they would have been adopted.

Please, let's not fall for a partisan ploy and kill a good bill.

Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

The committee and the House are constrained by a number of rules that cause substantial numbers of days to elapse. Does this motion, if it passes, in any way empower us to forget those rules of the House which require a certain number of days in committee, certain number of layovers, an announcement of a markup, a delay before the bill is reported, the Rules Committee, et cetera? Does this motion in any way reduce any of those timetables?

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 1175, I call up the bill (H.R. 3221) moving the United States toward greater energy independence and security, developing innovative new technologies, reducing carbon emissions, creating green jobs, protecting consumers, increasing clean renewable energy production, and modernizing our energy infrastructure, with the Senate amendments thereto, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, I will claim the remaining time on behalf of the Financial Services Committee.

Mr. Speaker, this is a composite package. The President some time ago, a couple of weeks ago, urgently asked the Congress to send him several pieces of legislation, three in particular. One is embodied in the part of the bill that came out of the Ways and Means Committee.

Two, in fact, had previously passed the House from our committee, the bill reforming the government sponsored enterprises--and that came out of our committee and on the floor in a form that the administration mostly liked--and the bill to modernize the FHA.

In fact, the Senate then acted on the bill to modernize the FHA. We went into conference, we ran into some difficulty. Not a formal conference, but a conversation. What we have done because, as we know, the Senate is in a situation where procedurally it's often harder for them to act, so we are acting on the basis of a Senate bill.

We are readopting today two of the pieces we already adopted, reforms of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the FHA modernization. I think it ought to be noted that in both cases they are a recognition by the President that the private sector needs to be able to cooperate with public or quasi-public entities to get the job done. Those who take the philosophy that the market alone is sufficient unto itself, and that public sector intervention will do more harm than good clearly have been repudiated.

The FHA is a government agency. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are government creations with both public and private aspects. It is clear that we need both of them if we are to get out of this current crisis in mortgage lending and be able to go forward in a healthy way.

There is one new element today. That is a bill that our committee voted on last week and the week before. We had a markup. It was suggested to us in many ways by some of the regulators. In its essential form it was endorsed last Monday by the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, and we worked closely with his staff. The administration had an objection to one major piece of an auction mechanism. That's the longer part of the bill. What it says is that holders of loans, not the lenders, because the lenders have unfortunately long since been able to sell off their loans in many cases--and that's part of the problem--if the holders of loans will write down the amount due them in the principal, and if they get to a point below the current value of the home, in many cases these homes have lost value from when they were first mortgaged, and the borrower can be reasonably expected to repay it, we will broaden the right of the FHA to make a case-by-case determination, provide a guarantee so that can then be financed and resold to the secondary market.

It's entirely voluntary on the part of the lender. The lender will retain the right to foreclose. In many cases we believe that it will pay the lender not to foreclose.

In fact, we have legislation in this package sponsored by the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) and the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski) that will ensure servicers who are willing to write down the amounts, that they will not be sued if they write down those amounts to a reasonable level. We think that is very helpful. Again, it's voluntary.

We do believe that knowing if you write this down to a reasonable level, accepting your loss, you will be able then to at least get some guarantee of that to help stabilize the situation. But people should understand, there is not $1 of taxpayer money going to writing down that loan. The holders of the loans have to write it down.

Secondly, the borrower can then go to the FHA if the borrower can pay the new loan, but there is no taxpayer money that will go to help pay off that loan. The taxpayer exposure comes in the fact that there are FHA guarantees. If someone gets an FHA guarantee and subsequently fails to make the payments, his or her house is forfeited to the FHA.

We will lose some money on this, we believe. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that half a million foreclosures will be averted by this program, that would otherwise have taken place, at a cost to the taxpayers of $2.4 billion. That means $4,800 for every foreclosure averted.

We are told, well, this is a bailout, and I want to follow on what my colleague from Massachusetts said. We have seen one bailout this year over investors and speculators. It came when the Federal Reserve, actively urged on by the Treasury, bailed out for $30 billion potentially--we don't know what the losses will be--but $30 billion is at risk of what will ultimately be public money, to lenders, to speculators and investors, people who were partners at Bear Stearns.

Now there may have been some confusion yesterday. I tried to avoid it. I am not critical that we are doing that. I am critical of the lack of sensible regulation that led them to be in that position. I think we do have to examine it, and I want to examine it from the standpoint of what we can do that will make it less likely that we will be confronted with that kind of choice, either provide those funds or see serious further economic debilitation.

But for the administration that engineered $30 billion of bailout for the investors and others who did business with Bear Stearns to say that this $2.4 billion cost according to CBO that will avert 500,000 foreclosures is unacceptable as a bailout is as intellectually and morally and economically inconsistent a policy as we have ever seen. It is true, and some of the Republicans have said in a letter to me in the House, that they wanted to question this.

I would note, by the way, we talked about this, I have looked at the letter that was sent to me. I looked again at the letter, and in no case does it say they were opposed to it. People raised questions. Maybe that's an easy way to kind of cover your bases, but my point is not so much those who wrote the letter, it's the administration.

The administration says they're going to veto this bill, that it's a bailout. It is $2.4 billion versus $30 billion at Bear Stearns.

Now, I believe that Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke have been doing the best they can in this situation. I am not critical of what they have done. Chairman Bernanke has been consistent and thinks this is also a reasonable thing to do.

The President, of course, appointed Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke, and for the administration that supported and facilitated the $30 billion for Bear Stearns which went to lenders, went to investors and some of them were speculators--to then object when it's homeowners seems to me to be entirely the reverse of the reality of the situation.

Again, I want to stress, I was asked by 17 Republicans if the committee would have a hearing. My answer was yes, the committee will have a hearing after we have dealt with the current subprime crisis-- and that will be soon, that was our priority--and a hearing not simply to say what did you do, because we cannot compel them to undo it--to look at what they did in the Bear Stearns thing in the context of figuring out how we are best able to diminish the likelihood that it will recur.

But we are in a recession, and a major cause of that recession is the subprime crisis. We do not see any alternatives to this bill to trying to work on that.

Yes, we had Hope Now, and then we had FHA Secure. The administration had several policies. They have been closer, in many ways, to us. The differences are not as great as they once were.

But the fundamental here is this, foreclosures are causing, have caused and are causing serious economic problems. Diminishing the number of foreclosures is in the interest--not simply of those who will avert foreclosure--but of people in the neighborhood of the cities in which they are located and the whole economy. That's why we are going forward with this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, before I yield to the gentlewoman from Florida for 3 minutes, I would like to note the use of the figure $300 billion is not a hopeful sign about a rational debate. Three hundred billion is the total value of the mortgages that could be insured. It would cost $300 billion only if nobody made any payments ever, and when the property was taken by the Federal Government, none of it had any value. CBO gave us a score of $2.4 billion. So we can debate this, but I would hope we can debate it with real numbers. The CBO score for the mortgage part is $2.4 billion. Everybody knows that $300 billion is not remotely what is at risk.

I yield now 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite).

I yield myself first 45 seconds to say that on the scoring, $2.4 billion was the CBO score for the mortgage part. They did say a total of $2.7 billion. The other $300 million is attributable to an amendment offered by the gentlewoman from Illinois on mortgage. So the gentlewoman from Illinois is correct. It is $2.7 billion. That includes the $300 million she added to the bill with her amendment, and the $2.4 million in mortgages.

Yes, the gentlewoman is correct.

Now I would yield to the gentleman from Ohio for a unanimous consent request.

Request for Permission to Modify Amendment No. 3

Mr. Speaker, I don't know what the parliamentary status is. Has the gentleman objected or not?

Mr. Speaker, I regret that, but sometimes people would rather see things not improved so they can then complain that they weren't improved. Fortunately in this case, we are not constrained.

The gentleman from North Carolina and the gentleman from Ohio said it had not come to our attention fully until after the committee markup. What happened was that they came forward with this amendment, and we heard some concerns from the Comptroller of the Currency, as the gentleman from Ohio has said, and from bankers.

We then talked to the gentleman from Ohio and the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Miller), talked to the American Bankers Association, the Community Bankers Association, the Mortgage Bankers, the OCC, various of the advocacy groups, the State Attorneys General, the National Council of State Legislators, and they came to an agreement that adding these words would make this something that would work.

Now, the obvious thing in a constructive way would have been with the agreement of all of the stakeholders and the conversations among Members on both sides to be incorporated into the bill. But constructive isn't always the order of the day.

So let me make this announcement which I have also, in anticipation that there might be such an objection, although I had spoken to the ranking member and he told me he thought we should go forward. It was my understanding the gentleman from Ohio had talked to the leadership on the Republican side. They thought it should go forward. So here is where we are. We will vote on the Miller-LaTourette amendment. I will guarantee to the Members that when this goes forward in any discussions we have with the Senate, we will accept this language, the Miller- LaTourette language, or if someone comes up with a better idea, any other language that would be mutually agreed upon by the gentleman from Ohio and the gentleman from North Carolina, the two bipartisan sponsors.

So while we don't get the unanimous consent agreement, because some people would rather there not be a resolution over an objection, let me announce what may be a first, and I'm not always the most technologically updated person; I don't have a lot of the devices, but I do want to maybe be the pioneer of the virtual unanimous consent agreement. In good faith the gentleman from North Carolina and the gentleman from Ohio want to amend this, they were denied unanimous consent, but I am prepared to act as if the body, and I have no question that it would have been adopted had we had a chance to vote on it, that it be incorporated. And as we go forward, we can guarantee Members that this language, if this bill is included, this will be included; and I can report that all of the stakeholders, the community advocacy groups, the banks, and the public officials at the State and local level believe that with the language that was worked out by the gentleman from Ohio and the gentleman from North Carolina with the Comptroller of the Currency, it will be fine.

So I wish we had got unanimous consent, but I want to assure Members that in this process going forward, our failure to get real unanimous consent, as opposed to virtual unanimous consent, will make no difference whatsoever.

On this point, let me yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina to complete this conversation.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to Mr. Kagen of Wisconsin.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, first I wondered how I'd fill 2 hours, but I could do that just responding to the inaccuracies we've just heard. Let me pick a couple.

The gentleman from New Jersey said that the administration wanted FHA reform and GSE reform and this Congress wouldn't get it. Well, he misread the newspaper. Bryan Montgomery, the head of the FHA, was quoted yesterday as saying, if Congress had done what I wanted in 2006, this wouldn't have happened. It was the Republicans who were in power in 2006. It was under the Republicans that GSE reform and FHA reform were frustrated.

When we took power as the Democratic majority, last year this Financial Services Committee and this House passed both of those in forms very close to what the administration wanted. In fact, the holdup on the GSE, and I know the gentleman thinks the notion of building affordable rental housing with public help is, as he calls it, a slush fund, and I think it's that lack of sympathy for affordable housing that was one of the contributing factors to getting people into homes they couldn't have owned.

But the fact is that we sent the GSE bill over to the Senate last year with a very large majority in favor, and the Senate hasn't acted, partly because the ranking Republican on the Senate committee hasn't wanted to act. I know the administration has been trying to persuade him to act.

So the notion that the affordable housing trust fund, that's slush fund for the gentleman from New Jersey, housing for lower income people, for elderly people, for disabled people, that's slush fund, well, it was not that that held it up. It was the refusal apparently of the ranking member to act on it.

So this is an example of the inaccurate descriptions you're getting.

I yield.

No, but the gentleman very inaccurately blamed the Democrats. He forgot, Bryan Montgomery said in 2006, the Republicans did it.

I think one ought to be more accurate and less partisan in a description of reality. The fact is that those were defeated under the Republicans when he was on the committee. Then, the Democrats did pass them.

And as to the GSE bill, he said it was the slush fund. I really like that phrase, ``slush fund.'' That's affordable housing for people, for lower income people. He said that's what's holding up the GSE bill. That is not remotely true. The GSE bill was sent by us to the Senate. They haven't taken it up. By the way, the affordable housing trust fund was in the Senate committee version when the Republicans were in power under the current ranking member when he was chairman. So that is just inaccurate.

It is true they have been held up in the Senate as they were held up under the Republican leadership as well. We are closer to passing them. I am confident that they are going to get passed fairly soon. We did finally get to some conversation on the FHA.

My objection was that the gentleman acted as if the world was created in January of 2007 and the Democrats refused to pass the bill, neglecting to note that the head of the FHA himself put the blame much earlier when the Republicans were in power.

I now yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Miller).

I yield 3 minutes to a very hardworking member of the committee, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Scott).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Gary G. Miller).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Watt), member of our full committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to a very hardworking member of the committee who contributed to this bill, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mahoney).

I yield 1 minute to the majority leader, the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to respond to the gentleman from Texas.

He says, why isn't the $2.7 written into the bill? It is, in effect, because it is subject to appropriation, and no money will be spent until that is provided. The $300 billion is the number of mortgages that could be insured, up to that. We needed to put that number there before CBO could tell us how much it would cost. And written into this bill before it becomes law and becomes operational will be that $2.7 billion figure. That is the way the process works. You get a CBO score, and then you pay for it.

I now yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois, a very diligent member of our committee.

If the gentlewoman will yield, I know sometimes conspiracy theories rattle around this place. The reason we put in the legislation to protect disabled veterans who had bankruptcy from being excluded from this program is to protect veterans, disabled veterans who have been in bankruptcy from being in this program. There were people who suggested that the sensitivity people would have in bankruptcy could be a problem. Now I will point out, by the way, that thanks to some very good amendments by the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Marshall) who has dealt with this problem in a more general way, and he is a bankruptcy expert--from the law side not the subject side. But we thought with disabled veterans, we know this engenders prejudice when people see in some cases people are disabled. So it was there for that reason, to protect people, to make sure that we, the Federal Government, would not, in any way, be discriminating against them and maybe therefore set a good example for everybody else.

If the gentlewoman will yield, absolutely I can guaranty that. I should be clear. I am cosponsor of the bill that would have provided a bankruptcy avenue for primary residences. That is a separate issue as far as I am concerned. No, this particular provision will not be a vehicle for that.

I yield the gentlewoman 30 additional seconds.

I guarantee this provision will only be what it is. If anybody wants to move elsewhere, I might support that. But entirely separate from this, this will not be a vehicle.

In fact, I think it would be dishonorable for anyone. We have had too many examples of people trying to use veterans, and particularly disabled veterans, as a political stick to achieve other objectives. I would find that to be an absolutely outrageous procedure, and I can guarantee you it will not happen.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the gentlelady from Illinois an additional 30 seconds.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Marshall).

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Al Green), a very active member of our committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman who helped put this bill together, the gentleman from California (Mr. McNerney).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to a very active member of the committee, the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. Perlmutter).

Mr. Speaker, I now yield 2 minutes to the chairwoman of the Housing Subcommittee, who makes her second appearance today, having carried through passage of a very important bill earlier today, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Sestak).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hinojosa).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Wu).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

I yield 2 minutes to another very active member of our committee who has been very active on the loan issue, the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman).

I have one request for a unanimous consent, and then I'm going to close, so I would yield to the gentlewoman from New York for a UC.

(Mrs. MALONEY of New York asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

I intend to close with our remaining time as our last speaker.

How much time is there remaining, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker, I understand the complaints about the process. Remember, though, that several of the bills being reenacted today have already been fully debated and amended on the floor. There is one that was not subject to the normal--and I'm a general defender of the normal--process. It's the FHA rescue bill.

And I will say, in this case, I think it is fair to ask Members to vote for it up or down. It is a very interrelated piece of legislation. It tries to balance cost and incentive. It would be easy to put it out of whack. And in this one case I think it is fair to say you can vote it up or you can vote it down. Members will have a chance to vote on it. While it's in the form of an amendment, if that amendment is defeated, it dies.

I also want to address the issue of the amendment offered by the gentleman from North Carolina and the gentleman from Ohio regarding preemption, because there may be some confusion.

I personally spoke, today, with representatives of the banking organizations, the American Bankers Association, the Independent Community Bankers, and the Mortgage Bankers. They took the position that if we were able to adopt the language offered by the gentleman from Ohio, they would find this a bill that they would accept and would not seek to defeat.

Because of an objection, we weren't able to do this, so technically, yes, they had previously said they were opposed to it in that form. They have also said, after we outlined the procedure that was followed by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette), the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Miller) and myself, that it is now acceptable; that is, while we were blocked by an objection from adopting the actual language, the language that was agreed to by them, by the Attorneys General, by the State bank supervisors, by advocacy groups, will be the language that's in the bill. So let there be no doubt about that. There is no substantive objection to what will happen.

Now, let me talk about the bill. I guess I want to, not damn my bill today with faint praise, but support it. It comes from the economists.

Now, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Flake), for whom I have a great deal of respect, a man of very high intellectual integrity, he chided me because I have taken a free market position, but not here. And I'll respond this way.

I have opposed systemic interventions in the market. I think it is generally unwise for us to enact legislation which, in an ongoing way, displaces the market. But that's not what we do here. There is a part of the reality of the market that is called market failure. People have won Nobel Prizes, Joe Stiglitz, for work about market failure. Clearly there has been market failure with regard to mortgages. The market failure was the breaking of the lender-borrower relationship and the substitution of securitization without appropriate countervailing incentives.

This bill today is no ongoing intervention in the market. It is time limited, and limited in specifics to a subset of mortgages. It seeks to undo, to some extent, to mitigate a market failure. It will leave the market, I believe, stronger going forward.

So I accept the gentleman from Arizona's reminding me that I should stay true to free market principles. This bill is true to free market principles.

And let me quote one of the leading advocates of free market principles in the English-speaking world, the Economist, called to my attention by the staff of the Financial Services Committee, which has done enormously good work in substantively putting this bill together, and in listening to me talk about it in various ways. And I appreciate both aspects of that.

Here's what the Economist said: ``The plan is hardly a bailout,'' talking about this bill. This is a current Economist. ``Lenders would have to write down their loans to 85 percent of the current value of a house.'' By the way, under FHA Security Administration's plan, they can get a 100 percent loan put in. They can get somebody who's defaulted and get them a 100 percent loan. We require an 85 percent writedown to the value.

``Borrowers would pay a fee for the insurance and give up a share of any later price rise to the government.'' By the way, they would also be barred for 5 years from taking out a second mortgage. So the borrowers under this, if there was an increase in equity, would have to share much of it with the Government, and the earlier in the process in which they sold out, the more the Government would get. That's not the bailout that people have described.

People worry about moral hazard. I would assure people, no borrower who goes through this process will say at the end of it, ``Boy, that was fun. Where do I buy a ticket to get back on Space Mountain?'' They will be deterred.

But we're not relying solely on this. Two-thirds plus of this House, many of my Republican colleagues didn't do it, but many of my Republican colleagues did. We voted for a bill to regulate subprime mortgages going forward. We're not simply relying on people's bad experience. We have put some restrictions on that.

I believe this is pro-market. The markets now are in trouble because a lot of people who were very smart bought things they shouldn't have bought, including subprime mortgages. And having bought things they shouldn't have bought, they now don't want to buy things they should buy.

We all know the little story about the child who touches the hot stove,

and having touched a hot stove and being burned, won't go near the stove. We have investors today who, having touched the hot stove, are staying away from the refrigerator, the sink and the shower because they have been so badly burned.

If we do not adopt appropriate responses to this market failure, we will not cure it, and the lag in investments will continue.

We are working through the market here. It is voluntary that a lender says we're going to cut it down. People say, well, they'll dump all their bad loans. Have the Republicans who say that, because many Republicans are with us, so little confidence in the FHA?

Nothing in this bill coerces the FHA to accept a single loan that it finds unlikely to be repaid. And CBO accepts that, because they say of 500,000 loans that they expect to be accepted, the failure rate will be, average out to $4,800 per loan. Do you really think if the loan failed it would only cost us $4,800?

That figure, that $2.4 billion is CBO saying that there won't be many failures because of the criteria that are in this bill.

And people have said, what about the people who paid their mortgages? Well, if they live in a neighborhood where there is foreclosure, they're getting hurt. If they live in a city where the property tax revenues are going down, they're getting hurt. And if they live in America, they are in the midst of a recession in which we are losing jobs when we should be gaining them, in which real wages have been pulled down, and the single biggest cause of this recession is the subprime crisis and its reverberations.

This is a rare case of a microeconomic factor causing a macroeconomic problem. And the market got us into this. And we don't say junk the market. And I know people who have said, oh, the market's way too smart. And people have said to me, you know, some smart people don't agree with this proposal. Well, I agree with that.

But I also have to note that no dumb people got America into this problem. You had to be really smart to understand collateralized debt obligation derivatives. And the problem is that we need to restrain some of their instincts and let the market function again. And it simply will not happen if you simply let it go.

Here's what we say. And, by the way, I supported Hope Now when it came out. But Hope Now had a flaw. It was based on the notion--Members don't even pay attention to this--it was based on the notion that the problem was when the mortgage reset to a higher rate under adjustable rate mortgages, that would be the problem. That hasn't been the problem.

The problem has been people who owe more than the loan is worth. Some of them were irresponsible in the first place. Some of them made the mistake that almost everybody else made of not foreseeing the depth of the drop in house prices. So Hope Now has been overtaken by events.

We here are responding to reality in a way that is pro-market and minimizes the outlay. I hope the bill is passed.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Clerk be authorized to make technical corrections in the engrossment of H.R. 5818 and amendments to H.R. 3221, to include corrections in spelling, punctuation, section numbering and cross- referencing, and the insertion of appropriate headings.

Mr. Speaker, I want to address both the procedural and substantive objections.

First, procedurally, I understand there are some legitimate concerns about the second rule that we will deal with. But as to this rule, I will say categorically I was the ranking member on the Committee on Financial Services for 4 years. The rule today gives more scope to the minority's amendments than any rule under this committee's jurisdiction when they were in the majority.

The gentleman complained about an amendment offered by the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-Waite). There is an amendment on the subject of illegal immigrants and their benefits in this bill. There were four such amendments. One was made in order. Putting in order duplicative amendments serves no purpose.

But when the Republicans were in power, we had situations where motions adopted in committee were changed by the Rules Committee, and we were not given an opportunity to vote an amendment and discuss that on the floor. That was on the GSE bill. There was never a time when, under the Republican rule, we had as much ability to offer ours.

There are three substantive amendments offered here. Five were already adopted in committee.

Now as to the substance. The notion that this helps lenders is bizarre. This is one that is strongly urged for mayors, Governors, police chiefs and municipal officials. Property already foreclosed used to pay taxes. It now absorbs taxes. There are fire hazards, there are nuisances, there are threats in terms of sanitation.

The problem is that many of the cities that have this problem of foreclosed property don't have the financial wherewithal to buy up the property precisely because they have lost tax revenues. They are in a vicious cycle. We are offering this money, and it is a need-based formula. The money goes to where there is the most foreclosed property.

Now it is true that it is $15 billion for the entire United States. We are in a terrible crisis, and this bill would provide $15 billion to elected local and State officials to buy up property. That's an awful lot of money. It is half what this administration offered to the counterparties of Bear Stearns.

Now I thought that the $30 billion offer to the counterparties of Bear Stearns was an unfortunately necessary request. But how, Mr. Speaker, do people in an administration that gave $30 billion of taxpayers' money, put that at risk for the counterparties of Bear Stearns, object when half of that is made available to all of America to abate fire high hazards and to preserve neighborhoods from serious problems?

The lenders don't benefit from this. In fact, we have a later bill in which we are going to be accused of not doing enough to put you into foreclosures. This bill says that when the property has already been foreclosed for at least 60 days, the cities and States may work with profit or nonprofit groups to make it available for affordable housing, to make it available for local employees. I guess when you don't have a serious argument, you just make things up. This one is totally unconnected to reality. We have been asked by local officials and worked with them. There is a great deal of property that has been foreclosed upon.

By the way, to anyone who says this is an incentive to foreclose property, there isn't enough money in this bill to begin to buy up all that's already been foreclosed. No one who hasn't yet done it is going to get any benefit from this, but let's get back to the basics.

Thirty billion dollars of public money has been made available for the counterparties of Bear Stearns, I think, of necessity, to avoid greater danger. But how, having done that, do you denounce half that amount of money for the whole country to cities and States to buy up foreclosed property that is blighting neighborhoods?

Then the gentleman from Washington said, well, why should the rural areas be forced to deal with this when it's a city problem because there is foreclosed property in many places? But that kind of rhetoric that sets one against the other, I don't think is very productive.

I guess I would say this: Why should the people of Detroit and Cleveland pay subsidies to farmers who make hundreds of thousands of dollars a year? We are going to pass an agricultural bill that's going to ask people in the cities to pay for agricultural subsidies. I don't think it is very sensible to start this kind of thing. We are going to bring forward housing dealing with rural housing.

America is in a terrible financial situation brought about by irresponsible economic activity unchecked by reasonable regulation. This is one small piece of dealing with it, and it is far less expensive than other pieces these people have supported.

A former President once unfairly characterized a leader of this House as someone who couldn't walk and chew gum at the same time. The gentlewoman from West Virginia extends, frankly, that insult to the whole House. She suggests we can't do two bills in one night. She says we should work to try to help avoid foreclosure. I agree. That's the next bill which we will get to after all of this useless temper tantrum is over, we will get to it at 3 o'clock in the morning, but we will get to it.

That bill will help avoid foreclosure. I know the gentlewoman agrees. She voted for that bill in committee although a majority of her colleagues were against it.

But I do not understand how anybody could argue that doing this bill now interferes with that bill later. They are totally not in conflict.

So the notion that this bill doesn't keep people out of foreclosure is true. It doesn't combat global warming. It doesn't get troops out of Iraq. It won't help me lose weight. There are a lot of things this bill won't do that I very much want to do. None of them are a reason to vote against a bill that doesn't do what it doesn't say it's going to do but does what it does.

What it does is to go to the aid of cities that have been victimized by the deregulation run rampant, perpetrated by this administration, which has led to the subprime crisis. We have vacant property everywhere in these areas.

Now the argument that this is going to award speculators and be an incentive to do foreclosures is also flatly wrong. This is $15 billion. People will tell you it's a lot of money, and it is. Do you know how much money this is? This is half of the money that this administration made available to buy up the debts of Bear Stearns. Now, I think they had to do that. I think they were forced to do it. But I think we have to do this as well.

I do think that the whole country, under this administration's calculation, ought to get at least half of what Bear Stearns got. That's all that this does.

Now, unfortunately, it's not nearly enough to buy up the property that's foreclosed. So anyone who says, I'm going to foreclose today because I want to get in on this, would be nuts because there is already property ahead of them. And even when this bill becomes law, if it does, there's a 60-day wait, and I hope it will be part of the stimulus.

Property that was once paying taxes because of this subprime crisis now eats taxes. It bites neighborhoods. And, yes, some of the people who foreclose may benefit here. But we are telling the cities and the States to be careful with this money. They have to buy it for affordable housing. That will put limits on what they will pay.

And you can say, well, why don't the cities do it on their own? Because the very cities that need help here have lost revenue because of this foreclosure. These properties are fire traps; they attract people who break the law; they attract sanitary nuisances. They lead to water hazards.

I always feel good when people make arguments against legislation that won't really deal with the legislation. The notion that the problem with this bill is that it doesn't help avoid foreclosure, when it was not the bill intended to avoid foreclosure, shows well, there's a dearth of arguments against it.

The argument that it's going to reward the speculators, this will go to

cities dealing with property that is causing them problems. Do we not trust the cities and States of this country to take this money and use it judiciously and wisely to prevent neighborhood decay?

I don't understand the animus that motivates so many of my Republican colleagues that say, Oh, no, let's not have government intervention here. Well, we heard that a while ago, and people on the other side successfully blocked government intervention in regulating subprime mortgage origination outside of the banks. It was this religion of never intervening that brought us here. A limited intervention to undo the negative consequences is what this bill calls for.

Of all of the unfair accusations, the one that blames the Community Reinvestment Act for this is the strongest.

The Community Reinvestment Act was passed in 1977. This subprime crisis, of course, did not appear until nearly 30 years later; but more important, the subprime loans that caused problems were overwhelmingly made by institutions not covered by the Community Reinvestment Act. It covers depository institutions: banks and thrifts and credit unions. Credit unions aren't covered. Banks and thrifts.

If only those institutions, deposit-taking, regulated institutions covered by CRA had made these loans, we wouldn't have had the crisis. The loans were made by institutions not covered by CRA 30 years, 28 years after CRA was passed.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

The gentleman is wrong to say that we evaluated everybody under CRA. We have evaluated banks and thrifts under CRA. Mortgage brokers, mortgage bankers were not evaluated----

No. Not until I finish this factual statement.

I will yield to the gentleman.

I will take back my time.

First of all, I thought I heard the gentleman talk about the Community Reinvestment Act. It's been late. I keep hearing, ``I move to adjourn.'' Maybe my ears got a little curdled.

I thought the gentleman said, and we'll check the record later. If he didn't mention the Community Reinvestment Act, I will apologize.

But no. I for one have been saying that we should not be pushing people into homeownership when they can't handle it, and part of the problem here was killing affordable rental housing.

But let's have the record clear. There is no rational way to blame the Community Reinvestment Act passed in 1977 and not cover the nondepository institutions for this crisis caused by the nondepository institutions.

I will respond at great length later, but I would say this.

I said I did not oppose, myself, what they did. I was talking primarily about the Bush administration.

Now the ranking member said 17 Republicans out of almost 200 signed this letter. I don't think that's the majority of Republicans. They didn't oppose it. They raised questions about it.

But it was the two highest ranking economic officials appointed by the Bush administration, Chairman Bernanke and Secretary Paulson, who did this; and it's the Bush administration that seems to me to be totally inconsistent here. So yes, I did point to an inconsistency between the Bush administration doing the bailout and their opposing this. I'm setting a precedent. I hope the citizens will think we are setting the precedent of coming to their aid from time to time.

Madam Chairman, I rise in as close to opposition as this noncontroversial amendment is likely to engender.

I did note, and I welcome the gentleman from Michigan's affirmation, that this is not simply for banks, investment houses, pirates, lechers and other ill of sordid folk. He is seeking to give preference to veterans, members of the Armed Forces on active duty, members of the National Guard or Armed Forces Reserve, school teachers and emergency responders.

I agree with these priorities. It is, of course, an affirmation that this bill will benefit these people, unless we are to assume that they will be given a preference which is of no benefit to them. But if this bill is of no benefit to anybody but speculators, lenders and riffraff, then why give preference to these people? I agree with the amendment to that extent, and so I would just say that this underlines the point that there are very worthy beneficiaries.

But now I also want to return to the matter of the Bear Stearns issue. I will acknowledge, I did receive a letter from 17 Republicans, which is, by my math, not a huge percentage of 199 or 200 or whatever the declining number of Republican Members of the House is these days, but it is still not a very large number. And even in that letter, while it was not thrilled by the Chairman Bernanke-Secretary Paulson collaboration, it does not have one word in strict opposition to it. Nor does the letter that 24 Republicans--a slightly larger number, but still not even 15 percent--sent to Mr. Bernanke again raising questions.

So, yes, 24 Republicans have raised questions, Members of the House, about this bill. I will repeat that my accusation of inconsistency goes to the Bush administration primarily. They are the ones who engineered the $29 billion. They are the ones who are vehemently opposed to this.

Now some Republican Members did raise a question that said we should look into it and we're skeptical of it. I agreed with that. As I said in the letter, I think we should study it. I did think we should study it a little later for two reasons; first of all, I do believe

the subprime crisis is a crisis, some Members on the other side do not. There are, among the signers of this letter, some of those who, from their very conservative ideology, oppose any action by this Congress regarding the subprime. I mean that quite literally, they oppose any action to deal with this. That's their right. But I would put dealing with the subprime crisis ahead of a backward look, as important as that ultimately will be, at what happened with Bear Stearns.

Secondly, I want to look at what the Fed did there in the context of how can we make it less likely that it will happen again? I wasn't happy that it happened. I think there was a necessity in those circumstances. So what I said in the letter that I sent back to the authors was, yes, we should look at this in the context of the broader question: What powers do we need to give either the Federal Reserve or somebody else to make it less likely that this happens again?

So, yes, I should, we should, look into it, but I think we should look into it not simply from a kind of retroactive bawling them out, but how do we prevent it or diminish the likelihood of it happening? But the inconsistency remains. Twenty-four Republicans said they had questions. On the whole, I haven't heard any Republican opposition to it. I haven't seen any resolution opposing it.

It was the Bush administration, and this is my point: I thought it was unfortunately necessary. The Bush Administration, this is Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke, they were the ones who did this. And I think they have been responsible in trying to deal with this crisis. But for the President who appointed those people to now denounce this because it's going to help, among others--and by the way, let's be clear, if this amendment passes, as I hope it will, we will be giving preference under this bill to veterans, members of the Armed Forces on active duty, members of the National Guard or Armed Forces Reserve, school teachers and emergency responders. So we have a Republican affirmation that these are among the beneficiaries.

And when you talk about bailing out investors and speculators, yes, that's what happened in the Bear Stearns situation. These were precisely the people who had done business with Bear Stearns. Now I believe that years of inadequate supervision of the economy, flawed legislation adopted when we repealed Glass-Stiegel and didn't put in regulations to deal with it at the time, that was supported by the Clinton administration and I voted against it. But when that happened, we invited the kind of problems that the leaders of the economic policy of the Bush administration had to implement. And it is that administration which is therefore being totally inconsistent in this regard.

Madam Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

May I inquire of the Chairman how much time I have remaining.

I have said repeatedly that I did not oppose the action. And I am pointing to the hypocrisy on the part of the Bush administration. The gentleman from New Jersey, like Sherlock Holmes, unearthed the fact that I wasn't opposed to it. I said that. I think they were forced into it. So, yes, I did not sign it.

As to not having a hearing right away, that is a done deal. I'm trying to prevent foreclosures now, then we will get back to looking in the rearview mirror.

Will the gentleman yield?

I just want to repeat, Members seem to think they're scoring points by saying, oh, they discovered we weren't opposed to it. I've said a dozen times, I thought they did what was necessary. I am not critical of them.

I do want to go back and see how we can prevent this from happening again.

But there is no inconsistency on our part. We didn't say that was the wrong thing to do. The inconsistency is the administration that says yes to $30 billion to Bear Stearns and no to $15 billion here.

Madam speaker, on Monday, April 28th, the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, an organization that fights against prejudice based on sexual orientation and gender expression throughout the world, announced its posthumous recognition of our late colleague Tom Lantos for his extraordinary work on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender victims of bigotry. The IGLHRC awarded our late colleague its OUTSPOKEN Award, in recognition of ``the leadership of a global ally to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and intersex community whose outspokenness . . . contributed substantially to advancing the rights and understanding of LGBTI people everywhere.''

Madam Speaker, I know how well deserved this award is, because I frequently turned to our greatly respected and much missed friend for help in combating anti-LGBT prejudice whenever such matters came to my attention in various other countries. Much of the time when I came to him I found that he was already hard at work in trying to address the particular injustice because no one here did more to fight for fair treatment in this regard internationally. Drawing on his considerable prestige throughout the world, and his unmatched record as a fierce defender of human rights everywhere, Tom Lantos was an invaluable ally in our fight against prejudice.

Madam Speaker, I ask in recognition of just one aspect of the extraordinary work of this extraordinary man with whom we had the pleasure and honor of serving be printed here.

[April 28, 2008]

IGLHRC Honors The Late Representative Tom Lantos

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission

(IGLHRC) announced today that it is presenting a posthumous

OUTSPOKEN Award to Representative Tom Lantos, the 14-term

Congressman who lost his life to cancer on February 11, 2008.

IGLHRC's OUTSPOKEN Award recognizes the leadership of a

global ally to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and

intersex (LGBTI) community whose outspokenness has

contributed substantially to advancing the rights and

understanding of LGBTI people everywhere.

``We are so deeply grateful for Representative Lantos's

unwavering commitment to human rights,'' said Paula

Ettelbrick, IGLHRC's executive director. ``Throughout his

life, Representative Lantos waged a steadfast fight against

injustice. His voice, vision and compassion will be sorely

missed by all of us in the LGBTI community.''

During his fourteen terms as a member of Congress,

Representative Lantos, who rose among the ranks to chair the

House Committee on Foreign Affairs, was a strong and

consistent voice for the rights of the disenfranchised. As

the founding co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights

Caucus, Lantos used his prestige as an internationally

respected leader on human rights to hold the very first

congressional briefing about the global persecution of sexual

minorities. He was the author of the International Human

Rights Equality Resolution, which he introduced in the 106th

and 107th Congress, condemning human rights violations

against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people

throughout the world.

Representative Lantos regularly challenged the abuses meted

out by individual countries to their LGBTI citizens. For

instance, along with key congressional colleagues, he

protested the arrests of allegedly gay men in the United Arab

Emirates, and the stoning to death of a Nigerian gay man. He

also asked Congress to ``withhold any support for a U.S.-

Egypt Free Trade Agreement'' in light of the roundup,

conviction and re-conviction of reportedly gay Egyptian men,

and issued a strongly worded statement asking the Nigerian

Government to consider the implications of passing the Same-

Sex Prohibition Act, which would have severely compromised

the rights of the LGBTI community in that country.

Congressman Lantos was also a staunch ally of LGBTI

Americans. He opposed a Constitutional Amendment banning gay

marriage, worked to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act

to allow U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents to

sponsor their ``permanent partners'' for U.S. residency, and

introduced a bill, with Representative Baldwin, to extend

basic employment rights to same-sex partners of federal

employees. He campaigned for adoption rights and marriage

equality for gay and lesbian couples, and supported hate-

crimes legislation and anti-discrimination protections in the

workplace. This is only a small part of his astounding legacy

of work in support of LGBTI rights.

Born in Budapest in 1928, Congressman Lantos was the only

Holocaust survivor to serve in the United States Congress. He

was a teenager when the Nazi's invaded Hungary in 1944 and

started rounding up Jews. After being sent to a labor camp,

and escaping twice, he returned to Budapest where he joined

the resistance, lived in a safe house established by Swedish

diplomat Raoul Wallenberg and secretly distributed food to

other Jews in hiding. At the war's end, he discovered that

most of his own family had perished in the Nazi death camps.

Miraculously, he managed to locate his childhood

friend, Annette Tillemann, whom he later married. He first

came to the United States on an academic scholarship in 1947.

He earned a Master's Degree in economics from the University

of Washington in Seattle and a Ph.D. in economics from the

University of California at Berkeley, teaching economics at

San Francisco State University for several years before being

elected to Congress in 1980.

``Representative Lantos's legacy has meant so much to our

community,'' said Ettelbrick. ``We are truly grateful for his

unwavering commitment to human rights. We send our deepest

condolences to his wife and family, and are honored to pay

tribute to his extraordinary legacy on LGBTI rights by

posthumously presenting him with our OUTSPOKEN Award.''

Madam Speaker, on May 16 there will be a very important event in New Bedford, Massachusetts: the ribbon cutting for the newly renovated Corson Building, which will be dedicated on that date as a key component of the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park Visitors Center.

I look forward to being joined at the ceremony by my colleague Senator Edward Kennedy and many other people who have played an active role in both the initial establishment of the National Park and in the preservation and restoration of the Corson Building, an important historical structure which was nearly destroyed by fire in 1997. Through a combination of Federal, State and local government financing, along with non-profit funds and efforts, the building, now attached to the existing Visitors Center, will serve as a major educational facility with valuable public meeting space that will be available for both National Park programs and community meetings.

Among those who will be recognized at the celebration on May 16 for their efforts in making the Corson project a reality, there is one individual whose contributions over the years were crucial and deserve special mention. I speak of New Bedford native Tony Souza, who was the long-time Executive Director of the Waterfront Historic Area League, WHALE, the city's leading historic preservation organization.

While Tony and his wife Elsie (who did great work as the Deputy District Director of my Congressional office) moved a couple of years ago to Florida to pursue other opportunities, it is his vision for both the National Park and the Corson Building that we will to a large extent be honoring at the ribbon cutting event. A little known aspect of Tony's efforts to restore the Corson Building and convert it into an educational facility is that he took much of his inspiration for that work from his late son, Christopher Souza, who had been a member of Senator Kennedy's staff.

Chris, who shared his parents' commitment to both improving New Bedford and preserving its wonderful historical legacy, sadly passed away at the age of 26 in 1994. This was of course a tragic loss for his family, but it was also a loss to the broader community because we were deprived of the talents of a young man who had chosen to dedicate himself to public service. Despite his grief over his son's passing, Tony gave some thought to steps he might take to honor Chris as an individual and also as someone who exemplified the next generation of young leaders. This consideration led ultimately to the idea of establishing the Corson Building, once it was rebuilt, as a facility with a primary focus on education, so that it could, among other purposes, play a key role in helping tell the young people of New Bedford the remarkable history of their city.

Like many complicated projects involving older structures and various levels of government--not to mention both the vagaries of the Congressional appropriations process and the National Park Service's property management regulations--getting the Corson Building to where it is today involved a slow series of steps with numerous detours. Along the way, it was necessary to stabilize the building after the fire; develop the necessary design for the renovation; and begin to assemble the requisite funds, all of which took time. Tony was consistently the driving force behind the efforts to overcome the obstacles that emerged, and I know that his desire to see the project completed was to a large extent a reflection of his love for his son. Indeed, he only decided to seek new challenges outside Massachusetts when it was clear that his vision for the project was well on its way toward completion.

So, the Corson Building ribbon cutting ceremony will be both a physical and a much more personal homecoming for Tony and Elsie. I join with Senator Kennedy, and the elected officials, National Park Service representatives and area preservation activists and residents who will also be attending the event, in paying tribute to Tony Souza's vital contributions to this important accomplishment, and to his son Christopher, who was such an important inspiration for his father's work on the project.

Mr. Speaker, reserving the right to object, it is important for the membership to understand what we have here, a need for the House to correct sloppy legislation, a use of the legislative process to score political points rather than to achieve public policy goals.

This is not a problem caused by the ranking member of the full committee, the gentleman Alabama. If you want to look at this as one big circus, today is the day that the gentleman from Alabama gets to clean up after the elephants. And I mean elephants.

What we have here, Members may have read this a week ago, there are people who specialize in writing recommittal motions that are not, in my judgment, constructive contributions to the legislative process but are ``gotchas.'' And what happens is we work in committee, as we did on this bill to provide debt relief to poor countries, the gentleman from Alabama has been a stand-out advocate for debt relief for poor countries when his party was in the majority and now.

We worked together and came up with a very good bill. In fact, a large number of the groups that support fair treatment for the poorest in the world are going to celebrate that bill tonight. Fortunately, because we were able to fix this, they have something to celebrate. We almost ruined their celebration.

Because what happened was after all of the collaborative efforts in the Committee on Financial Services, as we finished the legislative process, after we adopted several amendments, including a manager's amendment that was predominantly constructed for the Republicans' concern, a Republican amendment offered by the gentleman from California (Mr. Rohrabacher), one offered by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings), we got a recommittal motion.

Now the way things have unfortunately worked around here, no one got to see, on our side, the recommittal motion until minutes before we had to debate it, and we have only 10 minutes. It was a policy statement that said no debt relief should go to anyone whose government has business interests with Iran.

By the way, Condoleezza Rice just came back from meeting with the Gulf Council, in which she was urging them to give debt relief to Iraq; and they don't want to give debt relief to Iraq apparently for a number of reasons, but one of them, you can read it in today's Washington Post and yesterday's New York Times, is Iraq has too many dealings with Iran. Now they weren't technically covered by our bill, but if you are going to set forward the principle for the United States Congress that you don't give debt relief to people who do business with Iran and other people apply that principle, you won't get debt relief for Iraq because they have those relations given their proximity, the religious commonality, et cetera.

But to go back to this request and the need for it, the recommittal motion was so badly drafted that it knocked out many parts of the bill. In fact, the House took three votes last week: Two to adopt the Republican amendments and then one to adopt a Republican recommittal that killed the two Republican amendments.

I thought, well, maybe they didn't notice that we had amendments, but as the Parliamentarian had pointed out to us, this amendment was so sloppily drafted in the urge to score political points and not consult with anybody, I think, on either side in terms of committees, that it also killed some parts of the bill. It didn't simply do the amendment. You might say, well, they drafted to the bill and didn't look at the amendments. It killed parts of the bill.

I am going to withdraw my reservation, Mr. Speaker, because this is an important bill. But will no one learn from this? Can we not stop this process of ambush and last-minute recommittal motions that are not part of a constructive legislative process but are drafted purely to make political points and drafted badly and drafted not in consultation with any substantive knowledge?

So we are here today to undo much of the effects of a recommittal motion. We are here today because of ``gotcha'' politics that the minority leadership played, not the committee leadership, but the minority leadership.

And so I would hope that they might have learned from this. And let me be clear, Mr. Speaker, my original intention was not to agree to this because I thought they just killed the Republican amendments. Luckily for them, they were even more incompetent in proposing that than I had thought they were, and they killed vital parts of this bill that we both need. So I am constrained to help them undo their own mistake.

And I would express the hope, probably in vain, that instead of continuing to use the recommittal motion in a way that has no constructive legislative purpose, but is truly to try and advance partisan agendas, that we can get a collaborative effort. That doesn't mean the recommittal motion shouldn't really put issues into play, of course they should; that's partly what it's for. There's no need to hold it until the last minute. If we had had an hour's notice, we could have found that error. I found the error, but by the time I found it it was too late, we had already wrote it. So I hope out of this--I don't have a lot of hope, but I do hope--that those who have sort of taken the legislative process hostage by their need to politicize recommittal will learn from this. And I hope this is the last time we have to come here and correct this.

And I will just as I close predict again, it wasn't just badly drafted in the technical sense, I will predict that we will hear that if the United States Congress adopts as a principle that no debt relief goes to a country that has business with Iran, it will undercut Secretary Rice's efforts to get the Gulf Cooperation Council to give debt relief to Iraq. And I believe that we will not only have to correct this procedurally, we will have to correct it substantively.

Mr. Speaker, I withdraw my reservation.

Will the gentleman yield?

Well, I hope that's the case. The gentleman mentioned the 24 countries. But if any of those countries emulates Iraq and perhaps buys oil from Iran, they won't get the debt relief under this recommittal. So I hope we can also correct that error.

If the gentleman would yield one more time. And I appreciate, as I said, we had a bipartisan approach at the committee level. Partisanship took over at the recommittal process. I was glad to cooperate with the gentleman in correcting that. And I would just say to the gentleman, in the words of the song, ``It's his party and he can cry if he wants to.''

Madam Speaker, I am pleased that we appear to have a very broad consensus in favor of this. My friend from Texas is right. There is no one single answer to the problems of poverty. But I am pleased that we have agreement that this is an important part of it.

We have some history here that argues for this bill. In the year, I think it was 2000, we in this House passed a bill on the floor over some objection from the administration at the time, the Clinton administration, and from some of the House leadership. But we passed a bill to begin the process known as the HIPC, the heavily indebted poor country debt relief, and it has worked very well. And for those who think that these enterprises are doomed to failure, we can point to many successes in HIPC. And we did this in a way so that countries that had not lived up to what should have been their part of the bargain didn't get the benefit.

The time has now come to do this again. And if this is done right, relieving countries of debt--debt that was often incurred by prior undemocratic and repressive regimes, and they will be primarily African but not entirely--relieving these countries of debt does as much to promote education and reduce poverty as anything else we can do.

I think it is particularly noteworthy on this day when His Holiness the Pope is in our city that we received a letter from the Most Reverend Thomas G. Wenski, the Bishop of Orlando, who is chairman of the Committee on International Policy of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. He strongly supports the bill, and I ask that that be introduced into the Record now, along with a letter from the Jubilee Coalition, the Jubilee Network, many religious and civic organizations, and the NAACP.

Committee on International Justice and Peace; Department

of Justice, Peace and Human Development, U.S.

Conference of Catholic Bishops,

Washington, DC, April 9, 2008.

House of Representatives,

Washington, DC.

Dear Representative: As Chairman of the Committee on

International Policy of the United States Conference of

Catholic Bishops (USCCB), I urge you to support the Jubilee

Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation of

2007 (HR 2634).

Inspired by the call of our late, beloved Pope John Paul

II, USCCB has long been a strong advocate of lifting the

heavy burden of debt from the backs of millions of people

living in the world's poorest countries. As Pope Benedict XVI

makes his first Apostolic Visit to the United States, it is

fitting that Congress show support for this important

initiative that would help alleviate the debt burden of some

of our poorest brothers and sisters around the world.

As you know, since 1999 major new debt relief initiatives

have been adopted by the international community. These

initiatives have resulted in the reduction of the debt of 22

poor countries by over $60 billion. Another 19 countries are

receiving, or are potentially eligible to receive, billions

more in debt cancellation. These reductions are freeing up

substantial funds each year for expenditures in education,

health and other investments essential for improving the

lives of poor people.

Despite this progress, a substantial number of needy

countries are not eligible for the existing debt relief

initiatives. HR 2634 represents a major new step towards

correcting this deficiency and making debt cancellation a

reality for virtually all very poor countries that have

participatory processes and financial management systems

sufficient to assure that debt cancellation savings will be

used to benefit the poor. We urge you to complete the

unfinished business of poor country debt relief and support

We have said that from the standpoint of the U.S., in order to be eligible for our help, they will have to cooperate with us against human trafficking, against terrorism and against illegal immigration. Those are the kind of conditions that is appropriate to impose.

Finally, we should note that this bill obviously does not, as it cannot itself, accomplish debt relief. It is a mandate to the United States executive branch to begin negotiations. And these negotiations must be multilateral, because we do not want to see America give debt relief when other countries don't do it and that nullifies the effect. And we also want to press the international financial institutions to do it using our influence there.

Today, we take a step widely hailed by particularly those who are concerned with the alleviation of poverty in other parts of the world. We take the step that does more than any other single step to reach that goal.

We have had a problem in the world of economic growth occurring in ways that shut out a great majority of the people in various countries from the benefit. We need a coordinated strategy so that we can have growth, but we can have growth in an equitable way. Debt relief is an essential part of that overall strategy.

I thank the gentleman.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 30 seconds by way of introducing our next speaker.

Last Tuesday, I was very pleased to go to a dinner of an organization called the Bank Information Center. And it was a gathering of representatives all of the groups fighting hard to relieve poverty in much of the rest of the world, especially Africa. And they particularly wanted to celebrate the anniversary of an amendment that was successfully authored by a then very junior Member of the House of Representatives that mandated that in international financial institutions due attention be paid to matters of the environment and human rights and decent standards for individuals. And we have come a long way there. That was then known as the Pelosi amendment, because the author of it is now the Speaker, she has continued that leadership, and I yield her 1 minute.

Mr. Chairman, I now yield 3 minutes to a former member of our committee whose actions we only mildly begrudge, who has been a leader on the issue of trying to provide effective poverty relief throughout the world, particularly in Africa, who has been a cosponsor of this, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. Chairman, I yield the gentlewoman 1 additional minute.

I now yield 3 minutes to another member of the Committee on Financial Services who has been a leader in our relationships with the multinational institutions, the gentlewoman from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore).

I believe the gentleman wants me to finish up, so I will yield to one of the congressional leaders on affairs on Africa from the Foreign Affairs Committee, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Payne), for 3 minutes.

(Mr. PAYNE asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

I now yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey).

I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

(Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 additional minute.

Yes.

I yield myself the remaining time.

I join in thanking all those who participated. It may seem that this is an orgy of self-congratulations but it really is a celebration of an important point, namely that we are capable of disagreeing with each other strongly on very important public policy issues without that injuring our ability to cooperate in other areas where we can agree.

The Committee on Financial Services has some very sharp divisions, for example, in the role of the Federal Government in helping to build affordable housing and the rules that should apply there on the restrictions that should apply. I am very proud that has not in any way hindered us from working together on these things which are both in the national interest and in the interests of humanity.

Talking about the committee, I do want to mention one other person who has played a very important role here, no longer a Member, but the former chairman of the committee, the gentleman from Iowa, Mr. Leach.

The initial effort to put through debt relief was over the objection of the leadership of the House and the administration, the Republican House leadership and the Clinton administration. They weren't opposed to it in principle, they were hesitant. A group of Members pushed it through, and among those was the then chairman of the Committee on Financial Services, Mr. Leach, and we are following in the footsteps of those actions.

There are just a couple of points about this that I want to stress. We have some amendments. I will be agreeing to all the amendments. One or two may need some little work later on. But there is an important principle here.

During the nineties in particular, we had a great deal of turmoil in the world because as the international institutions, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund and the others, provided some financial assistance to low-income countries, they also provided some very intrusive prescriptions about public policy and decisions. If you are going to talk about democracy, Mr. Chairman, you have to honor it. You can't be for democracy only when you know you are going to agree with the outcome.

For the international institutions, with the backing of the American government all too often, and other governments, to have used the need of these countries for assistance, financial assistance, as a lever to dictate what should have been left to the democratic process, was harmful theoretically and practically. It led to decisions being imposed which undermined popular support for the governments and even for the concept of democracy.

So what we say in this legislation, and I know the President raised some concerns about it, there is a constitutional issue here, we think we are very clear, when the Congress of the United States authorizes activity that will reduce revenue to the government, not by an enormous amount, as the gentleman from Connecticut mentioned, but we are talking here about revenues, when we say we are willing to forgo some of these revenues because we think much more good will come from forgoing them than we could do with collecting them in this situation because of the need for stability and peace in the world, we have a right to set the terms under which it happens, and we say in here that there shall be no intrusion into the democratic processes.

We also say, and it is perfectly consistent, we do insist that there be democratic processes. This is not a bill that says no conditions. It sets conditions. The conditions are democracy. The conditions are no corruption, transparency and democracy in the sense of votes and democracy in the sense of free speech and democracy in the sense of people knowing what is happening.

We do say we want a framework of honesty and openness, which hasn't always been there. We will talk a little bit later about some of the differences about interpretation of that. Essentially it goes in the right direction.

I do want to note, this is a decision that it is not appropriate in the guise of providing financial assistance for international institutions or other governments to dictate to the recipient government issues that ought in a normal society be the subject of a democracy.

I repeat my gratitude that we have got broad support for this. I think there is an overwhelming consensus that reducing the debt of those countries which are trying to do the right thing for their people is, of course, primarily in the interest of the poor children and the other poor people in those countries, but also in our interest in trying to promote a stable and peaceful world.

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

Mr. Chairman, I offer that amendment.

Mr. Chairman, In consultation with the minority, I ask unanimous consent that the amendment be amended.

Mr. Chairman, the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert) alluded earlier to this amendment. We reject the kind of conditions that try to set tax policy or education policy or resource policy within a country, because if you go with democracy, you allow the countries to make them. But we did have a right, we thought, to set some conditions that affect us. We set forth some conditions involving democracy and openness, in consultation with the minority. We were reminded of some other conditions. So this adds to the conditionality.

If this amendment is adopted, there will be conditions requiring that people assuage terrorism, that they work with us on immigration, and that they avoid any participation in human smuggling.

I believe that these are agreed on, and in fact in some cases were put forward at the request of the minority. In some cases we thought they were clear. But one of the things I learned when you are legislating is never object to redundancy. It is better to say it twice than to have some ambiguity about whether you offered it at all.

So I offer this amendment I believe on behalf of the leadership and the membership of both sides of the committee.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I will finish by saying the gentleman from California was gracious and said I had been fair and he talked about my not being partisan. I want to congratulate him for his lack of partisanship, because having served the majority of his time here under Republican administrations, he retains a deep distrust of the State Department, including the current State Department, and apparently his point is he cannot trust the current State Department to enforce democracy.

I am inclined to appreciate his point. And while we have some differences, I did want to give him credit for his very bipartisan skepticism.

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

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I seek recognition.

Mr. Chairman, I know I am taking the time in opposition. I am not so much in opposition, but I am about as close to it as anybody we are going to find here, so I think I qualify.

I agree very much. On a case-by-case basis, I believe the gentleman from California and I would agree at each instance. And so I hope the amendment is adopted.

I would make one point, as I thought about it. It does reinforce the point that we should not be imposing on the recipient government's policy choices that a democratic government ought to make. The flip side of a commitment to democracy is recognizing the validity of those decisions.

I also agree with the gentleman. His wording is better than the wording I put in here for the future, permits free and fair elections, although there is always, when you are talking about the future, some weasel word.

I will work with the gentleman going forward. I am going to suggest to him maybe later that we might empower them to do a moratorium for a short period of time on payments in the following situation. We have had cases where bad governments were overthrown by people who are democratic. East Timor is an example. There is Ghana, where Jerry Rawlings overthrew a government and then had an election. His party is now in the opposition. Uganda. The gentleman is right. Ordinarily it may not take that much time, but things could be so chaotic, like in Liberia, when the new government came in there with some bad people. Maybe a year would be too little.

I will be talking to him later. I hope this amendment is adopted. Perhaps we could provide a temporary moratorium for a government that took over in those circumstances for perhaps 6 months or a year. But that's something we might work out.

The gentleman seems to agree that that is something that, while no commitment is obviously made, that we could work on.

I hope the amendment is adopted.

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

Would the gentleman yield?

I know the gentleman joins me in looking forward to continued years of such treatment.

Mr. Chairman, it's my information that the author did not intend to offer it.

Announcement by the Chairman

Madam Speaker, I rise to claim the 5 minutes in opposition; although I'm open to persuasion.

First of all, let me ask, if I could, the gentleman says, the government of which does not have business interest with Iran. Would this wording cover the Government of Iraq?

I would yield if someone would tell me that, that they may not be eligible for debt relief. Although we give them a lot of money, I don't think we lent it to them. But would someone tell me if this would include the Government of Iraq as currently constituted?

I would yield for a response. I yield to anyone who would respond.

I yield to the gentleman from Florida.

I understand that. Iraq is not currently there, but here's the deal. This is not just for now. It is conceivable to me that Iraq will end up owing us money. I hope it will, because we've sure given them a lot, and if they don't owe us any money, it's a big gift.

So the question is going forward, if in the future, because there is no current list of countries, we're talking about an eligibility criteria. Would this prevent debt relief from the United States or the International Monetary Fund, to the World Bank, to Iraq going forward?

I would yield to anyone who would answer.

Yes.

I will take back my time because I'm trying to get an honest answer.

We are setting policy here, not just for this week. We are saying here that if you do business with the government, if your government has business interests with Iraq, you're ineligible. I think it is fair to ask whether Iraq, if it were to become eligible in other ways, would be covered. That's not a trick question. Would this have the effect of excluding Iraq from such a program in the future?

I yield for an answer.

Yes.

Reclaiming my time, we only get 5 minutes. You know, if the minority had wanted to put this forward as an amendment, we could have debated it. They did it this way. So we can debate all of the other things. It's a very straightforward question.

You limit eligibility under this program. Iraq might very well owe us money. The question isn't nuclear weapons. It is, would this prevent Iraq from being eligible, these criteria. And I would hope someone would answer that.

I will yield again for an answer.

No. The answer is, of course, one that leads me to suggest that the answer really is ``yes.'' When people dance around and won't give you the answer, Madam Speaker, the answer is ``yes.''

Apparently, under the criteria set forward here, while Iraq is not now on the list for relief, it could not get it in the future. We will be setting policy that would have screwed you up because apparently, as this is defined, I infer that the Government of Iraq is covered because if the Government of Iraq wasn't covered by this, the answer would be ``no.'' When I don't get ``no,'' but when I get a discussion of nuclear weapons and what's currently in the bill and I don't get an answer to the question, then it is clear to me.

So Members, I guess, are free to vote on this.

No, I'm sorry.

Here's the response. The minority had the right to offer this in a way in which we could debate it. They didn't choose to do that. They chose to do it in this limited fashion.

So it does look to me like you are having problems here that does the Government of Iraq have business interests with Iran. I know there are close ties between the Governments of Iraq and Iran. There's interchangeability.

I think this is a pretty sketchy way to go forward. I'm not sure that there are any other countries. I think Iraq may be one of the few that doesn't. It's fairly narrowly drawn, but that's of great concern. And I couldn't get a direct answer, and I don't know if anybody really knows it.

Yes.

So the gentleman is telling me that the Government of Iraq has no business interests in Iraq?

No. I'm asking the question, does the government--

No, I'm sorry. The gentleman does not seem to understand the rules. I'm giving you a lot more of my time. Well, I guess free speech that we put in is for other countries.

Look, I understand the thought. The minority thought they came up with a clever idea and they outsmarted themselves. They put language in here that I think would interfere with the ability to have economic relations with Iraq. And apparently what I'm being told is if you believe that the Government of Iraq has no business interests with Iran, then you can vote for this bill and not worry about Iraq.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the instructions of the House in the motion to recommit, I report H.R. 2634 back to the House with an amendment.

Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I thought the Republican

budget deficits that we have seen since they took power in 2001 were pretty big, but the rhetoric deficit between what they say and economic reality is even bigger. There are zero tax increases or cuts in any of these budgets. The tax situation at the end of the year, the end of this fiscal year, will be the same.

Now, the gentleman from Texas is worried about people who will be facing tax increases later on. By the way, he says tax increases that are in current law, that's current law that the Republicans passed.

I didn't vote for the current law, so they don't like what they put into the law. But the people I talk with, working people in my district, no, they are not worried about estate taxes on $20 million. They're not worried about incomes over $200,000.

The gentleman did make an accurate point. He said, What about the person whose paycheck will be exactly the same next year? Well, before the Republicans took over, her paycheck wasn't exactly the same. They used to go up. Paychecks used to increase. Only with the Republicans in power have we seen this freeze on real pay, in fact, a decrease in real pay.

Let me tell you why I am for the Progressive budget, because I do believe we ought to save the taxpayers money. I am prepared to say that when the Republicans were in power, we won the Cold War. They apparently don't recognize that, because they've got a budget that's still fighting it. In addition to the enormous waste of lives and American prestige and everything else that is involved in the Iraq war and the enormous waste of money there, we are still funding weapons in this budget. Now, many of these weapons are great weapons, but they have one defect: they have no enemy. A weapon without an enemy is a pretty silly thing to have.

So I like the Progressive budget because, among other things, it brings under control this enormous increase in Pentagon spending, and apparently according to my right-wing Republican colleagues, spending on weapons that we don't need is good spending. Spending to pay for health care for children is bad spending. I think they get it exactly opposite and the Progressive budget is the way to fix that.

If the gentleman will yield to me, I haven't looked at that part. I was addressing the assertion that it raises taxes in this current year.

I will give the answer.

No. I don't think it does, anymore than the President's does or yours does.

Well, if the gentleman has me confused with the chairman, I would like to hear from the chairman.

Mr. Speaker, a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. Speaker, is blatant hypocrisy a violation of the rules of the House?

Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

If the bill were to go back to committee and be reported out, would it have to go to the Rules Committee and would other rules that require layovers before the House can act apply?

Parliamentary inquiry.

When you say this does not waive any rules, would that include the rule of the House that requires this to go to the Rules Committee with all of the appropriate times? Is that one of the rules that would not be waived?