Floor Statements

Mr. President, today I wish to honor in the Record of the Senate Jerry L. Lancaster, who served as the sheriff of Pulaski County, GA, for 28 years and retired on December 31, 2008.

Jerry was born and raised in Hawkinsville, GA, which is located in Pulaski County. He remained there in order to serve his community proudly for many years. Jerry worked with the Georgia State Patrol for nearly 10 years before being elected sheriff in 1980. As sheriff, he strived to live out the values he was taught as a child--hard work, fairness, honesty, respect, and discipline. His gifts to the community have been immeasurable. The level of respect the community has for him is evidenced in the fact that he is the longest serving sheriff in the history of the county and was never defeated in an election.

Jerry not only worked tirelessly for Pulaski County as sheriff, but he also gave of his time through his service on the Board of the Georgia Sheriff's Boys' Ranch. He gives credit to his wife Nell Goss Lancaster for her unfailing support, and I honor and thank her, their two children and three grandchildren for making Jerry's job easier and sharing him with the community. I hope you all find joy in the coming years together during Jerry's retirement.

Mr. President, today I wish to honor in the Record of the Senate SSG Gary Lemonds, a lifelong citizen of Walton County, real estate broker, and decorated Vietnam veteran who passed away on January 8, 2009.

Gary Lemonds served with Company F, 75th Ranger Regiment in Cu Chi, Vietnam, and was inducted into the Ranger Hall of Fame on August 25, 1994, at a ceremony in Fort Benning, GA. His induction was based on his involvement in a conflict with an armed hostile force in the Republic of Vietnam. Staff Sergeant Lemonds served as a team leader during an ambush patrol maneuver on April 9 and April 10, 1969. When an enemy force launched a massive attack, Sergeant Lemonds led his men in an assault on the enemy emplacements. He single-handedly charged a bunker and destroyed it with grenades, then, sighting another fortification, he crawled through fierce enemy fire and silenced it with his rifle. After eliminating the hostile entrenchment system, he continued his patrol mission. On April 10, 1969, his patrol was attacked a second time. From his patrol position in a bomb crater, he called in artillery and air support on the large enemy element. When withdrawing his troops to a nearby landing zone for evacuation, he came under sniper fire from two North Vietnamese soldiers, whom he quickly eliminated with a grenade. Intense enemy fire thwarted the extraction aircraft's first landing attempt, so he directed a gun ship on the enemy location and effected a successful extraction.

His extraordinary heroism earned him the Distinguished Service Cross, a Silver Star, two Bronze Stars, three Purple Hearts as well as numerous other awards and medals. He also continued to honor other service men and women well after his tour in Vietnam through his involvement with the Patriot Guard Riders.

Gary is survived by two daughters and a son-in-law, Kimberly Lemonds and Jennifer and Jason Needham; his mother Dorothy Lemonds; sister and brother-in-law Glenda and Tom Lewis; grandchildren Jessica Lemonds, John Cwiek, and Pressley Needham, and a niece and nephew. Along with Gary, I would like to recognize his family today and thank them for sharing their beloved family member with our proud Nation.

Mr. President, I wish today to honor in the Record of the Senate an organization that is doing phenomenal work on behalf of military families across Georgia.

Operation Homefront Georgia is located in Marietta, GA, and is a charter member of the Operation Homefront national organization that was founded after the horrific attacks on 9/11. The organization provides emergency assistance and morale to our troops, to the families they leave behind and to wounded warriors when they return home. For example, if a military veteran is unable to pay his or her mortgage due to injury or stress from war, Operation Homefront Georgia finds the money needed for the mortgage. If a soldier needs a wheelchair lift in his or her home, Operation Homefront Georgia finds a company that will install it for free. The individuals who are a part of this organization are truly miracle workers.

Operation Homefront Georgia is made up mostly of women, some men, but mostly ladies that leave work every day knowing that they made a difference in somebody's life. My office knows that when Operation Homefront Georgia calls, there is a dire situation on the line and we do all we can to help. They don't take no for an answer, and their insistence pays off.

Our men and women who are going off to fight should be able to know their loved ones at home are safe and sound. With Operation Homefront Georgia, they don't have to worry. This fine organization makes sure our soldiers return with dignity to a well taken care of family.

On behalf of a grateful Nation, I thank them for all they do.

Mr. President, I wish to join with my colleague Senator Chambliss to honor in the Record of the Senate Dr. Phillip Lee Roberts, oncologist and medical director of the Phoebe Cancer Center at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital in Albany, GA.

For decades, Dr. Roberts has diagnosed and treated patients in southwest Georgia with a record of care and devotion that is above and beyond the call of duty in his profession. In recognition of his remarkable work in the field of cancer treatment, Phoebe Putney Health System is dedicating its new cancer pavilion as the Phillip L. Roberts, M.D. Cancer Pavilion.

When Dr. Roberts began his practice in Albany in 1980, there were few oncologists south of Macon, GA. At that time, a diagnosis of cancer was often a death sentence. Dr. Roberts has seen the progression of cancer treatment from the earliest drugs and radiation treatment to the modern methods now used to fight the disease. Today, the progression of medicine and technology allows this remarkable doctor to deliver a message of hope rather than despair to his patients.

Through the years, as technology and cancer treatments have advanced, his steadfast dedication to his patients and his profession has remained strong. Well into his golden years, Dr. Roberts is still at the helm of one of the busiest cancer centers in the southeastern United States. He has yet to slow his pace or his professional battle against the disease he fights daily on behalf of his patients. Not only does he continue a full schedule with patients at Phoebe, he travels weekly to treat patients at clinics in outlying rural areas, where access to health care is still limited and unattainable for many due to economic and social roadblocks.

I am pleased to join Senator Chambliss in acknowledging the great work that is done each day at the Phoebe Cancer Center and the efforts of Dr. Roberts over the past 36 years to provide high quality cancer care. Dr. Roberts certainly deserves this recognition, and we offer our sincerest congratulations on the dedication of the Phillip L. Roberts, M.D. Cancer Pavilion.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Taking the lead from the majority leader, would now be an appropriate time to call up an amendment I have filed at the desk? I call up amendment No. 37.

The staff is copying it now.

Will the leader yield for a question?

Mine is a short amendment. I can summarize with a one- compound sentence explanation. Do you want me to do it now or later?

Mr. President, I would like to lay down amendment No. 37, the Isakson amendment.

I ask unanimous consent the reading of the amendment be dispensed with.

Mr. President, would it be appropriate now for me to give that one-line explanation or wait until the manager of the bill is back? Shall I go ahead now?

Mr. President, amendment No. 37 is very simple. It says the provisions of this legislation take effect on the day the legislation becomes law and is not retroactive, which is obviously the intent of everything we do. So any incident that occurred in the past could not be reopened for litigation, but any case after the day of enactment would be governed by the provisions of the law as they are in the new legislation. I think it is a simple, straightforward amendment, and I urge its adoption at the appropriate time.

Madam President, is the distinguished chairman prepared to move forward?

Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that Senator Saxby Chambliss be added as an original cosponsor of amendment No. 37.

Madam President, I grew up in the South when the civil rights era came and the civil rights laws were passed. After the passage of the Civil Rights Act, I ran a real estate brokerage company and saw the transition to fair housing from housing discrimination. I understand the ramifications of the Civil Rights Act, and I am proud and appreciative of what it has helped us to accomplish.

The 180 days in the statute of limitations applies to every facet of that act. It applies to housing discrimination and, obviously, in this case it applied to employment and pay discrimination. Obviously, with the votes that have taken place and the failure of the Hutchison amendment, it is pretty obvious which direction the bill is going.

So it is time we ask ourselves one question: Is it fair to reach back to the 1960s, repeal a statute of limitations that applied for over 45 years, and open the possibility of a plethora of cases that have not been filed to now being filed or, asked another way: Is it fair, after a game has been played, to change the rules in order to change the outcome?

Practically speaking, I would submit to you that this bill should be prospective and not reach back. It should say in the future that all the provisions apply to any case that may be filed on a future incident of discrimination. But to reach back without limitation and repeal the 180 days changes the rules of the game, changes the law under which people were trying to operate in running their business.

But, most importantly of all, let me tell you what it specifically does. I ran a company for 22 years. I am very familiar with what lawyers can do in terms of bringing in an alleged case, filing a case, taking you into depositions, and then saying: We can put a stop to all this if you will settle for $5,000 or $10,000 or $15,000. It is using an opportunity open to them to intimidate or, in some cases, extort, in my judgment, a fee out of an unwitting and unwilling business.

So I ask the fairness question: Is it right to go back to the inception of the civil rights laws, take an established principle that applied to housing, pay, and employment of 180 days, and change the rules so people can reach back after the passage of this legislation and create new litigation under changed rules?

In the interest of fairness, I would submit it should be prospective, that all the applications of law should begin with the passage of the law and its enactment.

Madam President, I will be glad to yield the floor to the distinguished chairman who is managing the bill and urge the adoption of the Isakson amendment.

Madam President, how much time do I have remaining?

Madam President, with deference and respect for the chairman, this amendment would do nothing to a pending case. This amendment will only apply to a case that has not been filed and could have reached back all the way to the civil rights era of the 1960s. Please be aware it would not in any way obliterate anybody's rights on any pending case that has been filed since May of 2007. It would only affect those cases that haven't been filed all the way back to the Civil Rights Act.

So, again, I think it is a matter of fairness and equity. I appreciate the time that has been allotted. At the appropriate time I will ask my colleagues to vote against tabling if that is the motion.

I yield the floor.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

It was my understanding of the UC agreement that the Isakson amendment will follow the DeMint amendment in terms of a vote.

Mr. President, the bill as it is written applies to any claim back to May 28. But the way it is worded, it appears to me it is a claim filed and leaves it open for any past claim to be brought up that wasn't previously filed. The amendment simply ensures that the act couldn't be used for new claims to be filed retroactively all the way back to the passage of title VII of the Civil Rights Act. It is a mere matter of being clear that it doesn't retroactively open the opportunity to file new cases all the way back to the inception of the act.

Madam President, to a certain extent I wish to follow up precisely on the remarks the Senator from Washington made at the end of her speech.

I, too, have been disappointed with the deployment of the first half of the TARP money, and I supported that deployment in the hopes that it would stabilize the marketplace, ease credit for our customers, and help the housing market. While it probably did stabilize the banking system, there has yet to be a loosening of credit and

there has yet to be a recovery of the housing market.

Looking ahead, we continue to look at suggestions that throw money at the problem rather than getting to the root cause of the problem. In fact, with the best of intentions, I think people are struggling to meet the symptoms of a serious illness rather than treat the illness. I wish to direct my remarks tonight to that illness.

The illness, as the Senator from Washington referred to, is the collapse of the U.S. housing market which began in the last quarter of 2007. In the first quarter of 2008, in January, I introduced a housing tax credit of up to $15,000 for the purchase of any house that was standing vacant or in foreclosure. I did it for a couple of reasons. No. 1, I was in the real estate business for 33 years, and I was in it in 1974, a year in which we had a housing collapse worse than the current situation. While many people think this one is bad, it is not as bad as 1974.

In December of 1974, there was a 3-year supply of unsold, standing new houses in the United States of America. That is a catastrophic inventory. We currently have a supply of about 11 to 13 months, depending on the State. That is not a good market, but it is not 36 months, which is a horrible market.

President Gerald Ford, a Republican, and a Democratic Congress, came together and passed a $2,000 tax credit to any family who bought and occupied one of those standing homes. Within 1 year's time, which was the limited time of the tax credit, two-thirds of the housing inventory on the market was sold, values stopped declining and started improving, and we had a stabilization of our economy, the end of a recessionary period, and the beginning of prosperity.

I come here tonight because about an hour and a half ago I dropped a bill known as Fix Housing First, an effort for me and others in this body to rekindle that debate of last January. Now, last year, we did pass a housing tax credit, but it was a now-you-see-it/now-you-don't approach. It was a first-time home buyer credit of $7,500 that was a refundable loan, interest free, because over 15 years you would pay the credit back to the Government in the form of income taxes. It was an incentive, but it was weak. It was not bold.

The tax credit we introduced last year was scored by CBO at $11.4 billion, and Finance believed at that time--and maybe rightfully so-- that was too big a price to pay and too expensive. Well, because we didn't do it, in October of this year, we approved $750 billion to address the symptoms of the problem, which is the failure of the housing market.

I had the privilege yesterday of meeting with some of President-elect Obama's team, including Rahm Emanuel, Dr. Summers, and others, and told them precisely what I am saying on the floor of the Senate today; that is, I hope they will embrace this concept of incentivizing the housing market so we can stabilize values, stop the continuing erosion of equity, and begin to reflate--not inflate but reflate--the housing market.

In America today, 20 percent of the houses are underwater, meaning there is more owed on them than they are worth. That means equity lines of credit with our banks are in default. It means students going to college are losing the money their parents had for tuition. It means there is not enough liquidity in households anymore or credit availability to make purchases of durable goods that are important to our system, and our system is continuing to feed in a downward spiral on the illiquidity, the lack of equity, and the lack of a marketplace for housing.

I was in this business for a long time, and I called 10 people who worked for me a number of years ago last weekend in Atlanta. I asked them, I said: What is going on in the market? Tell me what the buyers are saying or are there any buyers? I talked to a lady by the name of Glennis Beacham.

She said: Johnny, I had nine people come to my open house last weekend, and that is a good crowd for an open house in this marketplace. Every one of them had the money and they wanted to buy, but they were looking for two things: a short sale, which means somebody selling their house for less than is owed on it and getting a discount from the lender, which means it is a downward price or they are looking for somebody whose house is going into foreclosure that they think they can steal. They don't want to even make an offer on the 80 percent of people's houses in this country who are making their payments, aren't in default, aren't in foreclosure, but might need to sell. So the marketplace has died.

Now, Fix Housing First proposes the following: Repeal the $7,500 tax credit we passed last year, which is not being used, by the way. That credit has not been used to any extent whatsoever. Replace it with a tax credit that will go from $10,000 to $22,000 depending on the formula. It would be a monetizeable tax credit. What that means is this: you make the tax credit good for this year--January 1 through December 31 of 2009--but you allow the monetization or the claiming of that credit against the 2008 income taxes of that family. The 2008 income taxes come due in April of this year, the 15th. We all know that. By allowing the credit to be taken against 2008 income taxes, you can monetize that money at the closing, use it as a part of the downpayment, and immediately incentivize the marketplace. Is that a little costly? Sure. Is it something we would rather not do? Probably. But what are we going to do? Watch the marketplace go down to where four out of every five houses are underwater? Watch sales go down to where there is no viable housing market in this country? It has not stopped spiraling. It is continuing, and everything feeds off of it.

I don't wish to belabor this point, but I wish to talk for the American people, the people of Georgia. The community bankers are hamstrung right now. Most of their investments are in real estate, residential construction, and acquisition and development loans. With no marketplace to buy the lots or buy the houses, they have no cashflow coming in to service the loans. They are deteriorating in terms of their value. Americans who have been transferred who are making their payments, who have a viable house, who have to sell it to move to the next city of choice, there is no marketplace to buy that house, so that is stagnating.

Consumer products, take carpets, for example. The State of Georgia, the County of Whitfield, the City of Dalton produces about 85 percent of the domestic carpet in the United States of America. It is shut down. The mills are shut down. Why? People aren't recarpeting. They aren't redoing their houses. New houses aren't selling. The market is gone. I could go on and on with durable products made in the United States of America whose industries are now in trouble because the housing market has taken a severe hit over a protracted period of time.

So my plea to the President-elect, to my friends on both sides of the aisle, to the Members of the United States House of Representatives, as we are deploying countless billions of dollars to react to problems that are manifesting because of a failed housing market and mistakes that were made in the past, let's put some money out there to incentivize Mr. and Ms. America who want the American dream to buy a home, to buy one for their family, occupy it as their residence, and give them a tax credit for doing it. It is a small price for the Government to pay to begin to restore the industry that got us to where we are and will lead us out of these dangerous and dark times.

So I come tonight on behalf of the homeowners of the Presiding Officer's State of Florida and mine, the community bankers, the realtors, the homebuilders, the fix-it people, the durable goods producers, the building supply makers, the landscapers--every job that has been lost and gone, in some cases forever, because the housing market in this country has collapsed.

We have learned our lesson for loose underwriting. We have learned our lesson from loaning money to people who weren't qualified to borrow. We have paid a terrible price for that lesson, both the country and the people. It is time for us to do what we know we should have done: have quality underwriting, available credit, but have accountability in our lending system, make sure values are appraised right, underwriting is done right, and credit is available but people are qualified. If we can do that and incentivize people to come back because of the tax credit, we can solve this problem.

I don't want to oversimplify the gravity of the problem we face, but the

housing market led us in; the housing market will lead us out. It is time for us to fix housing first. Our failure to do so will cost us a lot more than $700 billion of our taxpayers' money, and countless Americans who shouldn't will lose their homes, lose their jobs, and lose their faith in the greatest country on the face of this Earth.

I ask my colleagues to study this recommendation. I hope the President-elect will embrace it. I hope, quickly, we can fix housing first in the United States of America.

I yield the floor and note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. SALAZAR.) Without objection, it is so ordered.

Mr. President, I rise for a few moments to address two subjects, the first will be about Israel and the second about the passing of Griffin Bell.

All of us are deeply concerned with the conditions in the Middle East, most recently in the last 12 days, the actions in Gaza, the loss of human life and the conflict.

But there is a necessary perspective we all must understand. In November of 2007, I stood at the last Israeli outpost overlooking Gaza. In fact, if you watch Fox or CNN or NBC or ABC tonight, where you will see those reports coming from, I stood on that very spot just a little over a year ago.

Also, I went to Sderot, the Israeli settlement outside Gaza, that since mid year last year has received 1, 2, 3, 10, 15 missile attacks, random attacks coming out of Gaza dropping on this Israeli settlement for no reason at all but the absolute ability or desire to terrorize the Israeli people and destroy that settlement.

What Israel has done by moving into Gaza is a major military operation. In some reports that you see on television or you read about in the papers, you would think it was unprovoked and unnecessary. The opposite is true. It has been provoked for 15 months by Hamas in Gaza. The Israelis have finally drawn a line in the sand and they have moved in to try to protect the best interests of their citizens.

For perspective, Gaza and Sderot are a little bit like Arlington and Washington. You are not talking about a large land mass, you are talking about a very narrow, tight area. It would be similar to South Carolina and Georgia lobbing missiles back and forth.

What would happen if one of those States did it? We would immediately react to protect our citizens and protect their lives and their livelihoods. That is what Israel is doing.

I pray every night that somehow and some way we can be a catalyst for ultimately a lasting peace in the Middle East. But surrendering to terrorism or the acts of terrorism such as Hamas has been taking out on the Israeli people is no way to go. I support the Nation of Israel. I believe they are doing the right thing to confront head-on the terror that has been imposed on them.

It should not be lost on any of us that the supplies that have gotten into Gaza through what is known as the Eisenhower Passageway, which is from Egypt into Gaza, have been military materials being flown in and then taken in through tunnels basically by operatives of Iran. Just as what happened in Lebanon a year ago with Hezbollah and the Lebanese, the same thing is happening today between Gaza and the Palestinians and the Israelis.

The catalyst for the conflict is another nation, Iran. It wants to diffuse the focus on its producing of nuclear weapons and instead keep turmoil in the Middle East to use it to its benefit.

As a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, I take very seriously my responsibility to look upon every nation in this world as a nation we should respect, as a nation we should dialogue with, and as a nation we should work with. But we cannot and we must not turn our head away from a nation that is causing terror to be invoked against innocent people such as Iran is doing against Israel through the Palestinians in Gaza.

So I hope and pray these difficulties end tonight. I hope and pray there is not another loss of life. But as long as Hamas is unwilling to enter into a meaningful peace, a meaningful effort to stop the terror, one that can be trusted and verified, then Israel is doing precisely what it should be doing in the best interests of its people. It is doing no less than we in this Congress and America would do were we attacked in the same way in the same time. In the first part of my remarks, I stand in solidarity with the people of Israel in hope and prayer that the hostilities end but not because of surrender; because ultimately we confront terror and get people to lay down their arms, not for a day, not for a cease-fire but for generations to come.

The second subject is, for me, a very sad subject but also a subject that brings a lot of joy to my heart. There is a great American by the name of Griffin Bell, known to many people in this room. I know you, Mr. President, being a former Attorney General in the State of Colorado, are familiar with Griffin Bell's record and jurisprudence in the United States for the last 75 years.

Griffin Bell first rose to prominence in America when Jimmy Carter brought him from Georgia to become the Attorney General of the United States of America. He brought him in at a critical time in our country's history because Griffin Bell had done unbelievable things as a lawyer during difficult times in the South.

Griffin Bell was the man whom Andy Young and the civil rights leadership of Atlanta and Ivan Allen, the mayor of Atlanta, turned to to write the plan for the desegregation of the Atlanta public schools. It was Griffin Bell who, as a lawyer but more so as a human being, worked through the difficult stress of those times of integration and the enforcement of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, to see to it that separate but equal ended and equal access to education prevailed for all.

He did it in a way where Atlanta was one of the few major cities in America that had no violence, no conflict, and no academic loss because of the imposition of the desegregation guidelines that were imposed by the courts.

Griffin Bell did something no one thought could be done. It was because of his ability to do that and find common ground and find understanding that Jimmy Carter brought him to Washington, DC, and appointed him Attorney General.

When Griffin left and went back to his law firm of King & Spalding in Atlanta, there was not a single thing that happened in our major capital city and our State for four decades that Griffin Bell was not a major player and a major part of.

During Olympics, when they came to Atlanta in 1996 and there were difficulties, to whom did the Olympic committee go to weed through the minefield of Washington to get the security assistance necessary for the Olympics and Atlanta? It was Griffin Bell.

When there was a company that was in need of a forensic audit by a legal man who would come in and clean up a problem in their company, such as E.F. Hutton did, whom did they call? They called Griffin Bell. For the better part of the last six decades, Griffin Bell has been the most prominent lawyer in the State of Georgia and I would suggest one of the most prominent lawyers in the United States of America. His mark has been left on countless hundreds of thousands of lives in our country. Sadly, at 9:45 a.m. yesterday morning in Piedmont Hospital, Griffin Bell passed away. I know where he is now. He is in heaven and he is looking down. He would be the last person to want anybody in the Senate or the House or anywhere else bragging about him. But I sing his praise for the greatness he did for our State and the greatness he did for his country.

To his children and to his wife, I pass on my sincere condolences and my thanks for the support they gave to a great father and a great Georgian, Griffin Bell.

I yield the floor and I suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, will the Senator from Tennessee yield for a question through the Chair?

First of all, Mr. President, I commend the distinguished Senator for all the work he has done on this issue over the last 2 months. But I

have one question. Is it not true that almost all those conditions in those three conditions you outlined were in whole or in part verbally contemplated by the automakers in terms of what it is going to take for them to come back and be profitable in the first place?

Mr. President, I say to the Senator from Tennessee, I thank you for your hard work.

Mr. President, I yield back.

Mr. President, are we in a quorum call?

I ask unanimous consent to be recognized to pay a brief tribute to our dear friend, the senior Senator from Alaska, Senator Stevens.

Mr. President, I wish to say that when I was elected 4 years ago, a gentleman by the name of Mack Mattingly called me on the telephone, a former Senator from 1981 to 1986, and he said, ``Johnny, when you get to Washington and you get to the Senate, you go meet Ted Stevens. Ted Stevens is the best friend you will ever have.''

I stand here today, 4 years later, telling you he was exactly right. There is not a person in this Chamber you have not been willing to help. There is not an Alaskan you have not helped. You are a steadfast friend, and you are as tough as nails. I wish to tell you how much I appreciate, from the bottom of my heart, what you have done to help me and the citizens of Georgia. Your work on Commerce, your work on Appropriations, your work on Armed Forces, and your work on the military, all of it is important to Georgia. You have been a champion all along. You are a true hero.

The tributes today are well deserved to a great man, a great Alaskan, and a great Senator. God bless you.

I yield the floor.

Will the Chair please notify me when 7 minutes has expired?

Madam President, I stand before you today and perhaps later on this evening to cast what is without question the most challenging vote and the most important vote I have been asked to cast in 30 years as an elected official. I will vote in favor of the economic stabilization bill because it does precisely one thing that we can do to help unlock the credit markets and help the average working Georgian, the average Georgia retiree, the average Georgia child who is looking to the future, to benefit from what right now is a very difficult situation.

I commend Senator Dodd for his leadership and Senator Gregg for his leadership. They have expended countless dollars in terms of political capital and countless hours to come up with a solution that works.

There are so many misunderstandings in the public about what this is and what this isn't. So just for the few minutes I have, I wish to talk about the core of it, why it is so important, why it makes sense, and why in the end we as a country will not only benefit but, more likely than not, we will profit from the investment our Treasury makes.

The core of this is the $700 billion authorization to buy mortgage- backed securities that are on the books of banks, savings and loans, insurance companies, and other entities in the United States.

The first misconception is that the money is going to Wall Street. Wall Street is not being bailed out. Everybody has forgotten that Lehman Brothers went broke. Merrill Lynch sold itself for 30 cents on the dollar. Bear Stearns sold itself or merged for 10 cents on the dollar. And AIG is paying the taxpayer 8.5 points over LIBOR to borrow $84 billion to dissolve itself. Those are no bailouts. This money goes to those who purchase the securities that were underwritten by Moody's and Standard & Poor's as investment grade and hold them on their balance sheets as an asset which is now valued virtually at zero.

As the Treasury comes in and Secretary Paulson buys these securities, he will make a market in these securities. Once he makes a market, there will be attraction of other investors to jump in for a very good reason. I don't know what price they will establish, but say it is 50 cents, 60 cents or 70 cents on the dollar. A lot of people don't realize that most of these securities, though some of them are in trouble, are not in trouble to the extent of 20, 30, or 40 percent.

By way of example, the worst foreclosure rate in the United States is the State of Nevada--19 percent. If you had a mortgage-backed security that was 100 percent mortgages in the State of Nevada, then, with a 19- percent foreclosure rate, if those foreclosures sold for nothing at sale, then that bond would be worth 81 cents on the dollar at maturity. If somebody paid 50, 60, or 70 percent for it, they would have an 11-, 21-, or 31-percent margin in that security. The power to hold it to its maturity and the power to buy the security and make a market is what makes this a genius proposal from the standpoint of getting to the heart of the American problem.

Then what it does is it establishes three things. One, it establishes a floor. I want to go back to what Senator Gregg said a few minutes ago. Inaction on the part of the Congress this week on this plan will continue a downward spiral that will accelerate, will deepen, and will touch the life of every American citizen, and it will touch it and harm it for a long period of time.

If we are able to pass it, and quickly go to the marketplace and establish the market for these securities, we create a foundation from which, over time, we can grow out of this. Americans' credit will be back again, albeit much tighter than it has been before. And it should be because we should have learned the lessons from some of the excesses of lending operations before. But credit will return.

What will happen is people will continue to have their jobs. What will happen is people who need to sell a house will now see that people are coming back into the marketplace so they can sell it. All in all, by loosening what is now a clogged credit system at mainstream banks and savings and loans all over the United States of America, we will return a sense of normality to the American economy. The failure of the Congress to do that will establish a continued downward spiral that will be a disastrous for the individual average American in whatever State they live.

So for me this is a difficult vote because you never want to find yourself in this situation. But tonight is not a night to say no to the future of the American people. Tonight is not a night to say no, we do not have a responsibility to help. Tonight is not a night to try to find some philosophical way to figure out how somebody else ought to do it.

It is on the shoulders of the Congress of the United States of America. The people affected are our citizens, the people who have voted for us and sent us here. It is absolutely critical we unclog the financial markets, free up credit to the average American and, over time, restore the American economy to what it has been and always will be: the best entrepreneurial capitalistic system in the world. But failure can sign an end to that very reputation this country so loves and so deserves.

I yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Salazar.) Without objection, it is so ordered.

I have listened to so many speeches today--really yesterday, this week--about our problems and our plight in this country economically. I have listened to a lot of blame and, quite frankly, there is a lot of blame to go around, including on the shoulders of every one of us here.

But I think the American people are interested not in the past but in the future. As our leaders have appointed designees to negotiate what hopefully will be a successful package, I think it is now time to start talking about what can be rather than what was. And what can be is a return to prosperity and confidence in the United States of America.

I think there are four component parts that must be a part of this package I believe our leadership is working on. First and foremost, they need to understand we have to worry about Main Street and not Wall Street.

In my State, Main Street is Slappey Boulevard in Albany; it is Abercorn Highway in Savannah; it is Whitlock Avenue in my hometown of Marietta; and it is Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta. The people who live on those streets, who have life savings and 401(K)s and IRAs, have concerns. Let's talk about the prospects for the future. The prospects for the future right now are quite grim without an arrangement, without an agreement in this Congress to deal with the current financial stress that is taking place in our financial institutions.

We are going to have some protracted, difficult times. But if we rise to the occasion, if we, in fact, do what things we need to do in the next 48 hours, we can change the future for the better. It is our responsibility, and it is our job.

First of all, in looking after those Main Streets in our home States and our hometowns, what we need to do is return confidence. We need to return confidence by, first of all, having our financial institutions strengthened. What Secretary Paulson proposed, what is now being currently debated in terms of a $700 billion authorization to purchase assets that are troubled from financial institutions is an important part of that solution.

It is also, and little has been said about this, an opportunity for the United States of America to stabilize the financial markets and over time to recover not only the cost of stabilizing them but actually get a return. For example, if the Treasury is authorized to purchase mortgage-backed securities that today are on the books at marked-down market value to zero, at 50 cents on the dollar, hold those to maturity. If those default rates on those mortgages hold, which today are somewhere between 9 and 12 percent, the margin could be as high as 25 to 38 percent in terms of held to maturity. In fact, as the market returns, those securities could, in fact, be sold by the Treasury at a margin above the 50 cents on the dollar that was paid for them.

It is an opportunity that can work and, finally, an opportunity that will make our financial markets much stronger. Will it bail out Wall Street? No. Wall Street has taken its hits. Lehman Brothers is broke. AIG is liquidated. The remaining investment bankers on Wall Street have asked to come under FDIC regulation. And Bear Stearns lost 90 percent of its value. Wall Street has taken a hit, and a significant one.

We do not want Main Street to take it. This proposal has the opportunity to solidify the balance sheets of the local savings and loan and of the local bank that your customers and your citizens on Main Street deal with every day, which right now are under stress.

The second thing we need to do is to ensure the American people understand we have the oversight over the Treasury during the disposition of these funds so that we know the funds are being handled in an accountable way. Our leaders are negotiating right now precisely that type of oversight, so the Congress knows, not on a quarterly basis but on a daily basis, what the Treasury is doing and how the program is working.

Third, it has to include and address the fact that a lot of CEOs in a lot of troubled companies have run away with large packages of money. That has been very offensive to the American people and, quite frankly, very offensive to me, the most recent of which took place last night with Washington Mutual.

It is appropriate if financial institutions come to the Treasury of the United States and the taxpayers of our country and ask for assistance in the purchase of these securities in order to stabilize their balance sheets, that there be accountability in terms of executive compensation to those taxpayers who are funding that bill.

Then, fourth, we need to start talking about the greatness of this country and the confidence we have that we can return. Our difficulties now are somewhat of a crisis of confidence in our country and in its financial system. As elected officials Republicans and Democrats alike, in these next 48 hours, it is critical for us to understand that nothing is more important in the financial markets than the confidence of the consumer. The American consumer is the person who resides on Main Street and is the person I was elected to represent and will.

We need to recognize also there is a second phase to this recovery. After we finally do get the financial markets stabilized--I think the proposal by the Secretary has the opportunity to do that--we need to understand three things have to happen. First, this country has to get its arms around our energy crisis and solve it.

I have enjoyed working with the Presiding Officer on programs such as that. When we return in January, our first priority must be to open all of our resources, lessen our dependence, and become independent from foreign imported oil and independent with our own sources of energy. Whether it is biodiesel, whether it is diesel, nuclear, whether it is coal-to-liquid, whether it is solar--it ought to be all of them. We are a great country with enough natural resources to be independent in terms of our energy. Second, we have to get a handle on our debt, and this package that is being negotiated has the opportunity to do that because a part of it should ensure that the proceeds we receive in return for the assets we buy at a discount in the beginning go not to the general fund but go to pay the debt of the United States of America.

In time, this exercise can in fact reduce our debt obligations rather than increase them. But we need to ensure that is part of the package. Then, finally, it is very important for us to understand it is not just our income in balancing your balance sheets, it is our out-go. We have been spending too much money as a Congress of the United States of America.

One of the more disappointing things I have experienced in the Senate has been our failure on many years to not do appropriations bills in an orderly fashion. We end up doing them as a combination, as a minibus or omnibus where instead of debating the finer points of a particular appropriation, we develop a gigantic piece of legislation that none of us knows every facet of when it comes to spending.

So as we look after Main Street today by finding a solution to bring stability to our financial markets, and we can do it, and do it in an accountable way, let's also recognize that when we return, as our markets solidify, let's do the things the people of America elected us to do: hold the Treasury accountable, find a solution to our energy dependence, make sure

we do not spend too much money, and restore to the American people the confidence in our budgetary process that they have in their own around the kitchen table.

We are a great country because we have always risen to the occasion. There may have never before been, domestically, a more difficult financial occasion than the one we face today. In the hours ahead, I hope we will rise and come to a conclusion that will benefit the taxpayers on Wall Street and will ensure the financial stability and the confidence of American consumers in this great economy and our great country.

I yield the floor.