honored to serve as a member of the conferee committee, this is a good bill. as you know in the house of representatives we passed all 12 of our appropriations bills. the senate passed nine of their 12 bills. unfortunately they were not able to do them all, but we met many hours at night and passed what is considered, i believe, a good bill for all the reasons you ever mentioned-er-health care, veterans, education, transportation. helping our military men and women who are on active duty and those who are not. this is a bill that wraps up our 2009 appropriations process less one bill and we'll take that up next year. excuse me, next week. . i comment the chairpeople who have brought the bills together who have worked many long hours to see that we get the work of the people done. our appropriations committee handled over $1 trillion from

various programs of the federal government. we take our work very strong, work long hours, spend many hours on it. all the bills before us today have been reviewed. all 12 have passed the house, are pretty much the same bills that we had in conference the other evening. i'm proud of our work. as an appropriator working with our colleagues on both sides of the aisle but specifically the democrats under the leadership of chairman obey, i want the american people to rest assured you have a good product before you. we will continue to do what's necessary to fund our children's programs, our health programs, transportation, veterans, you name it, this completes, by one bill, the 2009 appropriations process. i'm honored to be a part of that and look forward as we go forward into the new year. thank you. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman's time has expired. the gentleman from iowa, for what purpose do you arise? >> i'm pleased to yield three minutes to the gentleman from

tennessee, mr. wamp. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from tennessee is recognized for three minutes. mr. wamp: thank you, mr. speaker and i thank -- mr. speaker, and i thank the gentleman for yielding. i want to thank the members for their work this year because it is important work. it's the only must-do work that the congress has every year and that's part of the power of the appropriations committee and i do think that just blaming each other for our shortcomings is not particularly helpful. but i want to point out a couple of things. chairman edwards is our chairman of the military construction, veterans' affairs appropriations subcommittee and i'm a ranging member and it's an incredible privilege for both of us to carry out those functions. chairman edwards is a true patriot, does an excellent job. we've got a great staff. our bill is certainly not the controversial part of this omnibus bill at all. as a matter of fact our bill passed the house 415 to three and passed the senate unanimously. so there's huge consensus here and we deserve bipartisan praise

for doing right by our nation's veterans and the men and women and their families that are in uniform today. that's what we're supposed to do. but i have to say this, we had hearings every week through the spring and we always ask, what's the most important thing we can do for you and we heard virtually every week, the most important thing you can do for us is get our bill passed and enacted into law on time. by october 1. as a matter of fact that was the battle cry for why we needed funding is they have to rely on the funding flow and the veterans' affairs and their military construction and here we are more than 10 weeks later just now passing our bill. now last year we got our bill done on time and that's not mr. edwards and it's not me. it's somebody else on the scheduling of when these bills come up because this bill had such consensus it could have just flown through in late september and everyone under the $78 billion funding profile

would have had their money on time. and that is a problem and i don't care whether you're republican or democrat, that's a problem. especially when you come and say, let's start funding them in the future, two years out, so that they have the knowledge that the money's going to be there yet you don't get the bill on time and you're 10 weeks late or more. that makes no sense. it's not only eye ron ing, -- ironic, it's unfortunate. maybe they're holding this bill in case they needed a vehicle for all the other bills they couldn't pass. i hope no -- not. i hope you're not doing that to our men and women in uniform. and their families. and our veterans. we can do better than that, i know. i was a conferee, i was there monday night as we negotiated this bill. i tried to take the tarp money which now there's $200 billion left and put it back against the debt and put it in the treasury because now there's a plan to go spend that money on things that may or may not work. why not pay our debt down? the chinese are worried about whether we'll ever pay our debt.

we are sinking as a nation under a mountain of government debt and we got to do something about it and neither party's got a lot to brag about but ya'll are in charge. we can do better. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from massachusetts, for what purpose do you rise? >> i yield myself two minutes, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. >> i fully recognize the argument that's being made by the other side on this issue, of the level of spending. there has been an increase in the discretionary ex pendsture that we are providing -- expenditure that we are providing for the needs of this country. but the fact is that through the eight previous years before we -- the six previous years before

we came into the majority, excuse me, is in the discretionary expenditure for programs that do things for people in country, that provide money for our education system, our health care system, our transportation systems, our infrastructure in general, not just the transportation infrastructure, but water research infrastructure and our housing, just to name a few, and even our veterans' affairs, even our veterans' programs to provide services, while we had two different wars going on around the world, all of them over in asia, that are discretionary expenditure was under very severe constraint and the level of discretionary expenditure under that six-year period before fiscal year 2007,

that ex pendsture was -- expenditure was under a constraint form. and so the budgets that we have passed in the last three sessions when we've been in the majority have had an increase in discretionary expenditure to provide a catchup expenditure for things going on in this country. we hear among our constituents all the time, why are we spending so much money in other places around the world when we should be -- i yield one more minute. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for one additional minute. mr. olver: why are we spending so much money there if we can't find a way of extend -- expending more of those things i mentioned, the housing, the transportation, the health services and education? why can't we spend some of that here? so, yes, our ex pendsture has

been up -- our ex pendsture has been up but -- expenditure has been up but we make no apology for that kind of expenditure given for the reason why it has occurred. and so i think -- i leave it at that. we make no apology for increasing discretionary expenditure on our own people and the needs of our own people and that should continue, in fact. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from iowa, for what purpose do you rise? mr. latham: mr. speaker, first of all i want to thank the gentleman for recognizing the fact that we were fiscally responsible before and that -- to catch up in two years spending 85% more, increasing spending by 85%, is truly more than catching up, i would say. i would now yield three minutes to the distinguished the gentlewoman from missouri.

>> thank you, i'd like to address the financial services of the omnibus and first want to commend chairman serrano for his efforts in crafting the bill. it's been a pleasure to work with him and while we don't always agree, he has at least an open to listening to the minority's idea. while i appreciate chairman serrano's efforts, i've got a lot of concern with the financial services division and so -- in so far as it's a 7% increase over fiscal year 2009 or $24.2 billion. this is very, very general rowls. and i believe that the resource requirements of the agencies funded in this bill can be met with a smaller allocation, particularly given the government's financial situation. however, with the allocation provided to mr. serrano, he's done a good job of allocating the funding in the bill and i'm grateful for efforts to provide increases to critical programs such as the financial crimes enforcement network, the treasury terrorism and financial

intelligence program, drug free communities and high intensity drug trafficking areas. i'm also pleased that the bill provides $75 million for d.c. education programs including $42 million to d.c. public schools. and i'm happy to some extent that the bill doesn't totally eliminate the opportunity scholarships program but i must say i'm very disappointed that the program is limited to students currently enrolled in the program. my own daughter teaches in the d.c. public schools so i know firsthand how these schools are failing the city's children. and i ask how we can possibly limit educational opportunities for low income students when we know the public school system is underperforming. another area of the bill that department deeply concerns me is controversial changes to long-standing general provisions regarding abortion and medical marijuana in the district of columbia. we heard mr. tiahrt address that a little while ago. and let me then lastly discuss an issue that is not directly

related to this bill but it is related to the department of the treasury which is part of our bill and it is the administration of tarp. the tarp has greatly expanded the federal government's reach into the private sector not by purchasing troubled assets as was its original purpose but by purchasing common shares of banks, owning large auto companies and subsidizing home mortgages. today many democrats, including the president and secretary of the treasury, are discussing using tarp funds to pay for yet another stimulus bill when the first stimulus bill has already been a failure. unemployment is at 10%, only 12% of the discretionary funding in the stimulus bill has been spent, yet our friends on the other side of the aisle plan to shove through yet more government spending under the guise of job creation that's going to do more harm than good and we're going to offset it with surplus tarp funding. well, the tarp funding was never supposed to be used again and

again and again. our national debt is $12 trillion and the fiscal year 2010 deficit is projected to be over $1 trillion. members are going to be asked to increase debt limits, we cannot sustain this level of spending. tarp savings must be used for debt reduction and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman's time has expired. the gentleman from massachusetts. mr. olver: how much time remains on each side? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from has 13 minutes remaining. the gentleman from has 13 minutes remaining. the gentleman from iowa has nine minutes remaining. the gentleman from massachusetts is recognized. mr. olver: i yield three minutes to the gentleman from north carolina, mr. price, who's also a member of the transportation, housing and urban development subcommittee. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from north carolina is recognized for three minutes. mr. price: mr. speaker, our republican colleagues this

afternoon have raised the issue of guantanamo bay, so i'd like to take just a moment to clarify the treatment of guantanamo bay detainees in this bill and in previous bills. as our colleagues asurely -- as our colleagues surely know, this is an issue that was debated on the homeland security bill. the bill produced by the subcommittee which i chair. this has already been signed into law. language in our bill restricts the movement of detainees and requires greater transparency on the part of the administration as it disposes of each detainee's case. it allows the transfer of detainees to u.s. for prosecution only with requirements of thed a -- that the administration provide a risk mitigation plan for each transfer and advanced notice to congress and to the destination state. now, that same exact language was carried in the interior appropriations bill which was also signed into law and the conference report before us

restates this language yet again. exactly the same language there. shouldn't be any confusion at all as to where congress stands on this issue. now, our republican friends in conference attempted once again to play gotcha with this gitmo issue. they attempted to overturn these provisions included in previous bills and to bar the administration from prosecuting u.s. -- from prosecuting detainees in u.s. criminal courts. i think we ought to strongly oppose any such effort to stand in the way of bringing terrorists to justice. that's exactly what this is all about. we must not tie the hands of the departments of justice and defense as they seek to prosecute terrorism suspects housed at guantanamo bay as they seek to do that where appropriate in u.s. courts. now, our republican colleagues would rather keep guantanamo open, apparently, and to exclusively use military tribunals for prosecutions. they seem to think that three convictions by military

tribunals in the entire period of their existence is an impressive record. one of those was by a guilty plea. this isn't an impressive record, it's a dismal record. by contrast, a recent analysis of the 119 terrorism cases involving 289 defendants tried over the last 20 years in u.s. courts shows that 91% conviction rate for the cases that had been resolved as of june 2. now i can't tell you whether one option or the other is better for any given case, but that's not the call we have to make in our appropriations bill. we can, with current law, leave that decision to the experts in the administration who can best decide on a case by case basis who should be prosecuted in the u.s. and what mitigation plans are necessary to address any risk that may result from these trials. . absurd.

it's criminal prosecution -- is criminal prosecution an option we want to close off? of course the answer is no. we should be using these selected prosecutions to send a message to the world that we will not allow terrorism to undermine the rule of law in our country and with that i yield back. .

>> i rise to speak briefly about operations of this omnibus package. as the running backing member of the subcommittee i'm pleased that i've been able it to work closely with chairman lowey this year. she and her staff have worked to address concerns raised by committee rmps -- republicans and by me and i thank her for her commitment to bipartisanship. i also thank our senate colleagues, their staff, for working together to achieve common ground in the conference agreement. in the end, many shared priorities were preserved. funding new compacts for the millennium challenge corporation, fighting drug trafficking in mexico, central america and colombia, and continuing security assistance to key allies like israel, egypt and jordan. funds provided in this bill will allow state and usaid to hire more than 1,000 new staff which will help balance the three d's of smart power, the national to -- the approach to national security.

it will in turn support our nation's defense and allow our military men and women to refocus on their core mission. as the congress provides additional staff and increases foreign assistance funding the level of commitment to reform must be equal to funding commitment made. oversight must be a priority. for that reason the bill provides $149 million for inspectors general and the oversight provisions and reporting requirements are also included. the conference agreement retains the language, it prevents u.s. tax dollars from going to organizations that support or participate in involuntary or coercive methods of family planning. there are legitimate concerns about family planning funding that goes abroad and legislative safeguards will remain in place the next fiscal year. i regret that this package lumps six bills together in a package of close to half a trillion dollars and does not allow this body to address appropriations bills individually and fully vet them so i could support them.

. i support the many bills in this program however we must be aware of the tremendous debt held by this country. and work competently, being aware of this issue. again, i thank chairman lowey, our excellent committee staff and our senate colleagues for working together to address shared priorities. i reserve my time. . the speaker pro tempore: who seeks recognition at this time? the gentleman from massachusetts. mr. olver: i yield three minutes to the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. obey, -- the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from wisconsin is recognized for three minutes. mr. obey: mr. speaker, i would like to comment very briefly on the comments of the gentleman from tennessee. who a few moments ago criticized us because we were some 70 days late in passing

the military construction v.a. appropriation bill. let me simply point out that we may be 70 days late. but we are getting the job done. and in addition to passing the basic bill, we are for the first time in history providing advanced funding for v.a. activities. that is something that the veterans community has wanted for years and years, and it has been this congress that delivered. that stands in contrast to the performance of the minority party when they chaired this institution with respect to what they produced on the military construction-v.a. bill. they complained about the fact we were seven days late. they never passed that bill at all. they dew point pass it in

october. they didn't pass it in november which would have been 30 days late. they didn't pass it in december which would have been 60 days late. they never passed it. and so when a new congress took over, we had to pass all of those domestic appropriation bills and the military construction bill. so i think it is quaint indeed when they attack us on the question of performance on, of all bills, the military construction bill. i think they need to go back and take a look at the record when they shared this place. with respect to the funding levels in this overall bill, let me simply repeat what i said earlier. when you take into account the necessary increases for veterans disability, for the census, for the war costs which are not being hidden in the supplemental as they were under the stewardship of the friends on the other side of the aisle, when you take into account the

infrastructure change and funding, and the $6 billion that we needed to prepare the health care system for the legislation which is about to pass, the rest of the increases in the bill before us amount to 1%. i hardly think that that's excessive given the economic crisis that we face. i thank the gentleman for the time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from iowa, for what purpose does do you rise? mr. latham: mr. speaker, i just have one comment. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. latham: i that i -- think it's interesting to note the gentleman talked about we are finally getting military construction bill done, v.a. funding. the last two bills that we are funding are defense, which will be 80 days out from the start of the new fiscal year. the military construction-v.a. bill. but if you remember back with the schedule the very first bill that was passed and signed into law was to fund congress

itself. so we took care of ourselves here first. and the military was the very, very last. i think that's very unfortunate. i'm now pleased to yield two minutes to the gentleman from ohio, mr. latourette. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from ohio is recognized for two minutes. mr. latourette: i thank the speaker and i thank the gentleman for yielding. i'm going to break the mold here and say something nice about five pages of the bill. this bill in front of me, i think it was five pages right here, and say something nice about mr. obey as well and mr. serrano. by way of history, people know that the auto industry in this country got in trouble. and that this administration made a decision to use leftover tarp funds to bail out chrysler and general motors. both car companies submitted reorganization plans in february of this year and both were rejected by the task force. the auto task force was a strange collection of people that didn't have any experience in the auto industry at all.

most didn't own cars. those that did owned foreign cars. they determined that the car companies had to be more aggressive when it came to dealerships. as a result, about 800 chrysler dealers were closed. and about 2,000 g.m. dealers. the problem be with that is with rampant unemployment, about 60 people work at each car dealership across the country. car dealerships don't cost the car companies any money and it was a strange way to do business. potentially take 200,000 people and put them on the street. a couple of young fresh faced democrats, mr. maffei of new york and catoville of maryland launch -- kratovil of maryland, launched a legislative effort. but one of the pieces of legislation to leave town were the appropriations bills. we drafted some language and put it in mr. serrano's bill and mr. obey took it. mr. serrano and mr. obey took t they didn't have to. they probably got in trouble for taking it. that became the 800-pound gorilla that had to be dealt

with as general motors and chrysler moved forward on how to deal with this dealer situation. i also want to say something nice about the majority leader, mr. hoyer. he took up the mantel and said we are going to solve this problem. as a result the five pages that are here in the bill indicate that those aggrieved dealers now have the opportunity to binding arbitration and the facts need to be brought forward and hopefully fairness will be -- prevail, but that wouldn't happen without something good and bipartisan happening in the united states congress. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. who seeks recognition at this time? the gentleman from iowa. mr. latham: mr. speaker, it is my honor to yield one minute to

the minority leader of the house, the gentleman from ohio, mr. boehner. the speaker pro tempore: the minority leader is recognized for one minute. mr. boehner: we're broke. we're broke. america's broke. all year long our friends across the aisle have been on this massive spending spree that our nation can't afford. we have a trillion stimulus bill that was supposed to create jobs immediately and yet unemployment is now 10% of america. three million people have lost their jobs since the bill was signed into law. we passed a budget that's going to double the national debt in five years, triple it in 10 years. we have a $12 trillion national debt. we brought a national energy tax bill to the floor that's going to cost $1 trillion. passed of it. the health care bill here several weeks ago, another trillion dollars, passed it. when are they going to say enough is enough? here we are today, wrapping six

appropriation bills together. we are going to spend half a trillion dollars, and it's got over 5,000 earmarks in the bill. things like $292,000 for the elimination of slum and blight in scranton, pennsylvania. $300,000 for a music and education program at new york city's carnegie hall where they pay the employee who runs this program $530,000 a year in salary and benefits. and there's plenty in here for washington as well. $1350,000 for the national buildling museum. $250,000 for wolf trap center for the performing arts in our concert venue. and i don't know how worthy any of these projects are, i do have to ask the question, are they more important than our kids and grandkids who have to pay the debt? because we don't have the money to spend on this. it's our kids and grandkids that are going to pay for it.

and yet we can't find ways to cut spending. before the president took office, he said, he wants to go through the budget and these bills line by line and page by page. after congress passed the $410 billion omnibus spending bill earlier this year with 9,000 earmarks, the president signed it and he said, well, that was last year's business. now the president says reducing the deficit is next year's business. and that we need to spend our way out of this economic rescission we are in. i think the president ought to go through this bill line by line and page by page. all 2,500 pages of it. and then maybe they'll figure out we don't need to be spending this money we don't have and probably more and -- piling more and more debt on the backs of our kids and grandkids. instead our bond rating, our triple-a bond rating is in

jeopardy, and our democrat friends want to raise the debt limit next week by $1.8 trillion. let's stop the madness and vote no. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. who seek rex nation? the gentleman from massachusetts. mr. olver: how much time does each side now have. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman has seven minutes remaining. the gentleman from iowa has three minutes remaining. mr. olver: mr. speaker, i yield three minutes to the gentleman from wisconsin, mr. obey. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from wisconsin is recognized for three minutes. mr. obey: mr. speaker, i regret that this has become another typical who shot john debate, but since it has, let me respond to the distinguished minority leader. let's compare what president obama inherited with what president bush inherited. when president bush walked into the white house he inherited $6 trillion in projected surpluses.

he inherited three years in a row of budget surpluses under president clinton. and he inherited an economy in which all incompany groups -- all income groups saw their income rise by roughly the same percentage. in contrast when mr. obama walked into the white house he inherited $1 trillion deficit, he inherited two wars that were paid for on the cuff but with borrowed money. he inherited $6 trillion in projected deficits. and he inherited an economy in which for six straight years the income growth in this country, 94% of that income growth went to the wealthiest 10% of people and everybody else got table scraps. in addition, he inherited an economy that was projected to have a $2.5 trillion hole because of the biggest collapse of the economy in 75 years. and so indeed mr. obama and the

majority party in this congress spent money to try to prime the pump to keep the economy going because we were losing 700,000 jobs a month. the last three months of the bush administration. . we have not got that done last month. it's not good enough but it's certainly a lot better than the situation was when we inherited it. the gentleman squawks about the debt ceiling. the debt has already been rung up and now the question is, when the bill comes in the mail, is it going to be paid or not? the fact is, other than $1.8 trillion debt increase, $1.4 trillion of that is directly traceble to policy actions that were taken by the previous administration in the previous

republican congress and $400 billion of it are directly traceble to the actions we've had to take to try to bail the economy out of the mess that you folks got us into. so if you want to start comparing records, i'd be happy to. i'd much prefer to talk about the contents of this bill in the individual -- and the individual programs in this bill but since some of the gentleman on the other side of the aisle prefer to politicize everything, i think we'll have to have the debate at that level. that's too bad but i come to expect very little but that from the other side, i regret to say. do i want to thank the gentleman from ohio for trying to insert a bit of bipartisanship into the debate. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. who seeks rengnigs at this time? the gentleman from iowa. mr. latham: mr. speaker, i yield myself as much time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. latham: i'm first of all

going to close, i don't know if the gentleman has more speakers, but i'm planning on closing. i just want to thank the staff on both sides, but in our subcommittee and treasury and h.u.d., do an outstanding job, work together and just very, very proud of the work that they've done and the kind of commitment they've shown and just want to say thank you for the professionalism that they have exhibited throughout this whole process. mr. speaker, i'm going to oppose this for various reasons. number one, the fact that this $450 billion bill is a 14% increase in spending over last year, at a time when people are hurting, we cannot afford this kind of additional debt that's being put on taxpayers on the families at home. realizing that in the last two

years discretionary spending in this house of representatives has increased now 85%, 85% more money on discretionary money being spent today than just two years ago. does anybody at home have 85% more money today than what they had two years ago? is it responsible in any way, shape or form to have that kind of an increase? the gentleman from massachusetts, i appreciate his professionalism, made the case, basically for me before. we held down spending previously. and this explosion that we've seen just throughout the budget is simply wrong. we cannot sustain it and it is about the next generations. i've got four grandchildren. they're going to pay this bill and their children are going to pay this bill and it simply is not fair, it's generational theft, and we've got to finally

hold the line as far as spending in this congress and find some kind of sanity around here. with that, again, i would hope that everyone would vote no. we could get some reality, we could separate these bills, have them done correctly and in a responsible way and just one other thing in closing, i want to again thank chairman olver for being a very good friend and his professionalism and someone think a really admire. so with that, mr. speaker, i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from massachusetts, for what purpose do you rise? mr. olver: i yield myself the remainder of the time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for four minutes. mr. olver: mr. speaker, my counterpart, the ranking member from iowa, has graciously thanked the people on both sides who have done all the work, that

our subcommittee dealt with. actually since there's six different bills here i would like to extend that thanks to the people on the staffs of each of the six subcommittees on each side of the aisle who put countless hours into the work that has brought this bill to the floor at this time. but particularly let me just personalize it one more step. on our side my clerk, my clerk, cate callahan, and on the republican side, their clerk, dean veran, and the people who work under them, for them and with them and for us and for the people of the country, they have done an exemplary job in the

h.u.d. committee as i think each of the other groups have done for their own particular subcommittees. i prefer you should all be very grateful for that. with the passage of this bill and i'm going to urge passage as i close, with the passage of this bill we will, on our side, have completed the work on 11 of the 12 bills and thereby we will be a very large step closer to the finish of the budgetary process necessary to complete the year -- to provide for the year 2010. and so i'm very optimistic today, in fact a great load rises from the shoulders of all the chairs and ranking members

of the subcommittees. and with that let me just urge a yes vote on the -- on this budget bill in order to be able to reach that point very close to the completion of our work. and i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. all time for debate has expired. under the rule the the previous question is ordered. the question is on adoption of the conference report. the yeas and nays are ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. pursuant to clause 8 of rule 20, this 15-minute vote on adoption of the conference report will be followed by a five-minute vote on suspending the rules and passing h.r. 4017. members will lord their -- record their votes by electronic device. this shall be a 15-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives.

any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 221, the nays are 202. conference report is adopted. without objection, the motion to reconsider is laid upon the the unfinished business is oten question of spending the rules and passing h.r. 4017 which the clerk will report by title. the clerk: h.r. 4017, a bill to designate the facility of the united states postal service located at 43 maple avenue in cruiseberry, massachusetts, as the anne marie post office.

the speaker pro tempore: the question is will the house pass the bill? those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative -- >> mr. speaker. on that i ask for a recorded vote. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman requests a recorded vote. a recorded vote is requested. those favoring a recorded vote will advise. a sufficient number having arisen, a recorded vote is ordered. members will record their vote by electronic device. this shall be a five-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 416, the nays

the speaker pro tempore: on this vote the yeas are 419, the nays are zero. 2/3 of those voting having responded in the affirmative, the rules are suspended, the bill is passed and without objection the motion to reconsider is laid on the table.

the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. let's take conversations outside the chambers. let's clear the aisles on both sides, please. for what purpose does the gentleman from florida rise? >> mr. speaker, by direction of the committee on rules i call up house resolution 962 and ask for its immediate consideration. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the resolution. the clerk: house calendar number 140, house resolution 952, resolved that the requirement of clause 6-a of rule 13 for a 2/3 vote to consider a report from the committee on rules on the

same day it is presented to the house is waived with respect to any resolution reported on the ledge -- legislative day of december 10, 2009, providing for further consideration or disposition of the bill, h.r. 4173, to provide for financial regulatory reform, to protect consumers and investors, to enhance federal understanding of insurance issues, to regulate the over-the-counter derivatives markets and for other purposes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from florida is recognized for one hour. mr. hastings: thank you very much, mr. speaker. for the purpose of debate only i yield the customary 30 minutes to my good friend, the gentleman from texas, mr. sessions. all time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only. i yield myself such time as i

may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. hastings: mr. speaker, i also ask unanimous consent that all members be given five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on house resolution 962. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. hastings: mr. speaker, the house is still not in order. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is correct. the house is not in order. please take your conversations outside the chambers. clear the aisles. whisper. mr. hastings: mr. speaker, house resolution 962 waives clause 6-a of rule 13 which requires a 2/3 vote to consider the rule on the same day it is reported from the rules committee. this waiver would apply to any rule reported through the legislative day of december 10, 2009, that provides for same-day crucial of h.res. 4173, the wall

street reform and consumer protection act of 2009. i hope members on both sides of the aisle will support this rule so that we can move quickly to enact this critically important legislation. . over the past year the financial crisis has shown the deregulation or lack ever regulation over financial firms is not an option anymore. for the first time ever, this legislation provides key provisions that will mandate oversight of certain parts of the united states financial system. it will ensure that mortgage lenders are subject to high national standards so they can no longer give an individual a loan they cannot afford to pay back. furthermore, it will provide for a new interagency oversight

counsel that will allow federal regulators to oversee the entire system and identify activities that pose a risk to our nation's financial system. it will also require comprehensive regulation of the opaque over-the-counter derivatives marketplace. mr. speaker, would you ask for order in the house, please. the speaker pro tempore: take your conversations in the back of the chambers out of the chambers and would members please take their seats. and staff, please help us out. mr. hastings: thank you very much, mr. speaker. in my home state of florida, we are undoubtedly facing an insurance crisis. homeowners are burdened by continuously increasing property insurance premiums,

some are losing their coverage altogether, while companies are going under or simply leaving the state. this poses a problem not only to property owners who cannot afford increasing costs in this difficult economy, but also to the state which has taken on the responsibility of coverage those who cannot get insurance elsewhere and to the federal government which may be left to deal with the damage when disaster strikes. h.res. 4173 directs the federal insurance office to conduct a study on the modernization and improvement of their insurance industry in the united states. i introduced an amendment to the underlying legislation asking that they also look at the geographic disparates -- disparities in cost and access within this study.

hurricanes, floods, fires, wind storms are factors driving the cost of of insurance higher in florida than in some other areas of the country. numerous private insurers have recently sought rate hikes with regulators approving increases as much as 15%. we certainly cannot change the fact that certain regions face higher risks than others. however, the amendment that i filed will help determine what changes to the industry and its regulation can help ensure that these necessary insurance protections are available, accessible, and reasonably affordable for all americans. h.res. 4137 will also provide american consumers with long overdue safeguards and reflects the congress' commitment to

putting the needs of the american people before those of wall street. i'm pleased that chairman frank has seen fit to include the amendment that i just spoke to in his manager's amendment. mr. speaker, at this time i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves the balance of his time. the gentleman from texas. mr. sessions: thank you, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, i want to thank the gentleman from florida, my friend, the gentleman, mr. hastings, for the time. i also want to yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: without objection. mr. sessions: mr. speaker, i rise in strong opposition to this martial law rule and in opposition to the outrageous process that continues to plague this house. we have before us a martial law rule that allows the leadership to once again ignore the rules

of the house and the precedents and traditions of this house. martial law is no way to run a democracy, no matter what your ideology, no matter what your party affiliation. mr. speaker, i strongly agree with these words, but i cannot in good faith take credit for them because i did not write them. my staff did not write them. nor did the republican staff of the rules committee. in fact, so far as i know not one republican had any hand in the composition of this eloquent defense of democracy in this house of representatives. because the author is actually the gentleman from massachusetts and a senior member of the democrat-run rules committee, mr. jim mcgovern of massachusetts. he spoke these exact words on

the floor over two years ago regarding what he eloquently and accurately called a martial law rule. which is what we are being asked toer consider here today. we are being asked to consider this outrageous process on the house floor today and yet the democratic party knows it's not the right thing to do. it was not right then. and it's not right now. my friends on the other side of the aisle know it's not right, and that's why they spoke up at the time, and i agree with them. last month the democrat majority warlede barreled a 2,037-page health care bill through congress forcing government-run health care on every single american.

today in similar form they are considering a 1,300-page federal takeover of the financial services industry. 1,300-pages. this is simply another example of the government overstepping its boundary into the private market courtesy of the democratic party. this monstrous financial reform package include provisions to extend tarp, make federal bailout authority permanent, and allow bureaucrats to determine the types of financial products that will be made available to consumers and set the salaries of private sector employees. this bill does nothing to help create private sector jobs or to provide financial relief to

americans in these tough times, which should be congress' number one priority. but not this majority. over the past three years, america has witnessed a reckless multitrillion dollar spending binge by this democrat -controlled congress with more borrowing, more taxing, and more spending. the treasury department has reported the total deficit for fiscal year 2009 reached a record $1,400,000,000. this is nine times the size of the deficit when the democrats first took control of congress. despite the obama administration and congressional democrats' promise that their trillion dollar stimulus plan would

create jobs and unemployment would not rise above 8%, the department of labor once again reported an unemployment level of 10%. since the democrats took control of congress, the number of unemployed persons has doubled to 15.4 million people. this is only what is being reported. it's time to stop the bailouts. it's time to get the government out of the business industry of takeovers. and it's time to stop killing jobs. unfortunately, this bill we are considering today puts the american people on the hook once again for one of the greatest expansions of federal government history -- expansions of federal government in the history of the united states while doing nothing to create jocks. -- jobs. the first major provision of this bill was best summarized by a democrat congressman, brad

sherman from california, as tarp on steroids. it creates a permanent bailout authority for the federal government by assessing a $150 billion in new taxes on american businesses that will ultimately result in higher interest rates and higher fees for consumers. most disaster, however, is that this tax according to the minority on the financial services committee, and i quote, will shrink available credit by as much as $55 billion, and result in the loss of as many as 450,000 more american jobs in the financial services area. congress should be focusing on doing things to create jobs not to tax investors, the financial

services, and destroying jobs. this is the core difference between my republican colleagues and our friends, the democrats, in congress. republicans believe it's time to allow business to pay back tarp funds, notch down tarp authority, and pay down the debt with returning the money to the taxpayer. our friends the democrats want to create a perpetual tarplike fund, a bottomless treasure chest, to continue their happy spending ways. in an effort to thwart this trend and protect american workers from job-killing provisions in this bill, i am introducing an amendment in the -- i introduced an amendment in the rules committee last night which would eliminate this legislation if the government accounting office finds that the provisions of this bill

would kill one million or more jobs. my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, my friends that were democrats, were really serious about this, they would have made this amendment in order. mr. speaker, on a party-line basis, even when the facts of the case said if this bill's going to destroy a million or more jobs, every single democrat said don't include that as a provision in this bill. because politics are more important than policy in this house. i think we can all agree that protecting consumers is an essential role for congress. ensuring consumer safety is absolutely necessary for a successful, prosperous economy. yet one of the most far-reaching provisions of this bill is the creation of the

consumer financial protection agency. this cfpa is a classic example of the government overstepping its authority into the free enterprise system simply to make government bigger and to further control the free enterprise system and free market. this massive new agency will be led by a credit czar, yet another czar who will have unprecedented, unchecked authority to restrict product choices for consumers, impose fees on consumer products, and rule over financial transactions. the new bureaucracy would raise costs for consumers, reduce the number and type of products available to them, increase the micromanagement of financial services firms, greatly increase the confusion caused by conflicting consumer laws, and to ensure the demise of

american competitiveness around the world. in addition to the cfpa, this bill provides for the greatest federal expansion of the federal reserve since the central bank's creation almost 100 years ago. mr. speaker, americans pride themselves on the free enterprise system, the free market, and choices. yet congress once again today will pass legislation that increases government control and interference in the financial markets, rations resources, limits consumer choice, and dictates wages and projects as well as prices involved. in a time of economic recession with record unemployment and record deficits, i think and the republican party thinks congress should be enacting

legislation to grow our economy and to help with the creation of jobs not to destroy jobs. mr. speaker, the motives are clear. our democrat colleagues are using the policy and regulation to force a government takeover of the free enterprise system once again. i encourage my colleagues to vote no on the previous question. no on the rule. and no on the underlying legislation. because republicans k-n-o-w what our democrat colleagues are trying to do. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from florida. mr. hastings: mr. speaker, thank you very much. i'm prepared to yield myself some time and then yield to the dean of the house previously. but i'd like previous to yielding to the dean to address my colleague's immediate

concerns regarding the procedure in this measure. . he decries the procedure. i served with my colleague. this is not an unusual procedure particularly given the importance of this legislation. i want to point out that in the 109th congress the republican majority reported at least 21 rules that allowed same-day consideration. in fact, five of those rules waived this requirement against any rule reported from the committee. by contrast this rule is only for this one specific bill and only for today. additionally i would like to address my colleague's concerns

regarding where we are. i've been hearing repeatedly on this floor that the democrats have not done anything. i won't give the litany of everything that we have done. but what i do want to clear up, when we're referred to as persons that are happily spending like we're drunk sailors, i want to know what we started out with. and my colleagues seem to forget that we inherited a financial mess, a system on the brink of collapse. i didn't hear the cry when mr. paulson came here and said that our financial system was on its knees. we reacted, both democrat and republican, and i might add, even the tarp did better than most democrats and republicans expected. we inherited the worst recession since the great depression. two wars that weren't paid for, a broken health care system and

1950's energy policy. that was the gift from the bush administration and the republican majority in congress so there's been a lot to fix this year and we've been about that business. so here we are digging out from the bush economy. it's time to get this done, but it's not going to happen overnight. it's time to fund our priorities and meet the needs of the american people. simply, mr. speaker, this bill is a good basis, this rule is a good basis for the bill we're considering today and deserves to be supported by every single member in this body. i'm very pleased and privileged to yield two minutes to the distinguished gentleman, the dean of the house of representatives from michigan, mr. dingell. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from michigan is recognized for two minutes. mr. dingell: mr. speaker, i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered.

mr. dingell: mr. speaker, i begin by expressing great respect and affection for my dear friend from texas. unfortunately he's wrong. here the democrats came in and found that the republicans had left them two wars, a depression and $1.3 trillion deficit. and we found that when mr. bush came in he converted a $2 trillion surpruss -- surplus to a $7 trillion deficit. now i was a young boy when my dad was here and passed last april and i want to say this legislation does not re-institute steegle. it does much that had to be done by the democrats when they were dealing with the hoover depression which was very much like this one and was caused by this same good-hearted folks up in new york. gambling with deposser tos'

money guaranteed by the federal government. when they repealed the glass steel act, the result was that all of a sudden we had to rush in and bailout corporations too big to fail. insurance companies and god know what is else. in order to save the american economy. yes, we're having to spend money and we're having to spend money because of misgovernment, mismanagement and because of outright rascality in new york by a number of people to see to it that they had the powers that we took away from them to engage in that kind of rascality. we here have a chance to begin again, to protect the american people from the rascality that goes on with a bunch of sharp-shooting n.b.a.'s interested in only groping money and not car caring about the free nnl -- not caring about the

free financial system which we have here. the american economic system is too precious to trust unattended to new york and to the big banks and to the other wheelers and dealers up there. what we are doing today is seeing to it that that system is protected. i urge my colleagues to support the rule and to support the legislation. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas. mr. sessions: mr. speaker, thank you very much. i think it is very interesting that my democrat colleagues are saying that the republicans handed them this big mess which they couldn't wait to get and they have made it worse. they're acting like they made it better. they've diminished the unemployment of this country, they have raised spending 85% in the last two years and they are making this problem even worse. they begged for a chance to get their hands on this, they're doing it the way they wanted and it's making matters worse for

this country. mr. speaker, at this time i'd like to yield two minutes to the gentlewoman from kansas, ms. jenkins. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized for two minutes. ms. jenkins: i'd like to thank the gentleman from texas, mr. sessions, for yielding. mr. speaker, it would be extremely short sighted of us to disregard how the underlying bill will increase the debt, its impact on job creation and how it gravely misses the mark of restoring financial stability. when congress passed the tarp bank bailout last year it was intended to be a one-year emergency program, not permanent. but this administration has continued the bailouts. even more troubling, this legislation codifies the bailout authority used by the treasury department and the federal reserve leading taxpayers on the hook -- leaving taxpayers on the hook who is looking out for the taxpayers? they didn't cause these problems.

my constituents in kansas and folks across the nation have bailout fatigue. so at a time had folks are struggling to find work and make ends meet, this legislation restricts credit, increases the already record deficits and kills jobs. creating jobs and restoring fiscal responsibility should be the priority in washington yet all kansans see coming out of washington are expensive plans to grow government. that's the wrong direction. instead this body should end bailouts, protect consumers without restricting credit with smarter, leaner regulation, enact meaningful reform to prevent future collapse and ensure that any repaid or remaining tarp funds be used to reduce the deficit. i strongly urge my colleagues to oppose this underlying bill and i yield back the balance of my time.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. the gentleman from florida. mr. hastings: thank you very much, mr. speaker. before yielding to the distinguished gentleman from california i'd like to yield to my friend and ask him a question , my friend from texas. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas. mr. hastings: it appears that my friend and i are like ships passing in the night and both of us have been here during the period that democrats have been in the majority, the minority and the majority again. when your party gains the majority, does my friend have a recollection of what the surplus was and the fact that there was a surplus? mr. sessions: how much time is the gentleman willing to -- mr. hastings: i yield the gentleman such time as i have left to answer that question and then i'd like to ask the gentleman another question. mr. sessions: i appreciate the

opportunity. the gentleman knows that the surplus was literally trillions of dollars and that is always a guestimate in the future of where we exist. mr. hastings: all right. mr. sessions: the gentleman knows that on 9/11 of 2001 there was a surplus in this country. on 9/11, 2001, this country was struck by a group of terrorists who intended to harm our financial economy. mr. hastings: reclaiming my time. mr. speaker, reclaiming my time, i have yet another question. when you lost the majority, what was the deficit? and i understand 9/11. i understand all of the things that took place. i also understand that had we never been in the iraq war in the first place we wouldn't be here in this situation. so tell me, if you can, my friend, what the deficit was

when you lost the majority and what in fact did president obama inherit when we gained the majority again? mr. sessions: i will answer the gentleman if he will allow me a full answer. mr. hastings: well, i'll do it rhetorically and allow that you answer on your own time. the simple fact of the matter is -- mr. sessions: well then the gentleman did not intend for an answer. mr. hastings: reclaiming my time, mr. speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from florida. mr. hastings: when this administration took office they had a $1.2 trillion deficit. and they continued along the lines of saying that nothing was done. i want you to know that you don't just create a situation that gives rise to eliminating that with a magic wand. the american public understands this dynamic and will be patient. such time as we go forward to try to remedy this matter. the gentleman spoke earlier to my colleague, mr. sherman, but

before turning to him i want to look at some of the numbers. job growth under the current administration is reversing, be along -- a long downward spiral that started under the last president. the stimulus plan is working as planned. we're making sound investments and helping americans find good jobs and getting this economy moving again. the unemployment rate dropped last month and the efforts of this congress are helping people afford a home and we need to do a lot more to unseize the frozen dollars in these banks that are not helping small businesses and that's what some of this financial regulatory reform is referencing. even the tarp program is working better than expected and confidence has been restored to wall street, evidenced in the market and everybody's 401-k's

and more than $200 billion is going to be returned to the government. i'm very pleased at this time to yield two minutes to the distinguished gentleman from california, mr. sherman. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. sherman: the gentleman from texas seems quite aware of the statement i made about the first draft of this bill that was submitted by the treasury department. i referred to that draft as tarp on steroids. but unfortunately the gentleman from texas seems blissfully unaware of all the changes that were made to the bill in many days of markup. on balance today, this bill before this house reduces executive power to bail out wall street. yes, the bill does include some additional authority to the executive branch under sections 1109 and 1604. but pursuant to amendments that i offered these additional powers are limited in amount and

are sunsetted in section -- in the year 2013. so additional power is limited and sunsetted. what this bill does, however, is it deals with the existing enormous bailout powers that exist under present statute. under its suspend section 1823 of present statute which allows or has been interpreted to allow the fdic to make unlimited loan guarantees now up to $330 billion. this bill reins in section 1333 which allows the fed to make loans of any amount to anybody they want to under virtually any circumstances. they've already used this to the tune of $3 trillion. a vote against this bill is a vote for unchecked power in the

fed. it is a vote not only to preserve the provision that allows them to loan $3 trillion, that same provision would allow them to loan $30 trillion. only by voting for this bill can we rein in the fed. and their powers under section 1303. and only by voting for this bill can we audit the fed pursuant to the amendment drafted by members paul and grayson. voting against this bill -- mr. hastings: i yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds. mr. sherman: the power of the federal reserve. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from texas. mr. sessions: thank you, mr. speaker. by the way the gentleman will be able to vote for mr. bachus' amendment which does the right thing to address this issue. mr. hastings: -- the speaker pro tempore: the chair will note that the gentleman from texas has 17 minutes remaining and the gentleman from florida has 15 minutes remaining.

mr. sessions: i thank the gentleman very much. mr. speaker, that the time i'd like to yield two minutes to the very distinguished gentleman from chester springs, pennsylvania, mr. gerlat. . mr. gerlat: there is no doubt that the american people are hurting. our nation's unemployment rate is at 10% and some states even higher. our citizens are struggling to make ends meet. the democrats' permanent bailout bill, however, will not put americans back to work. in fact, it will actually cost more americans their jobs. this bill will make it harder for our families and our small businesses to get credit in their local communities that they need to create more jobs. it's certainly going to expand the federal government even beyond its current size and empower washington bureaucrats through the creation of yet another federal agency, the consumer financial protection agency. this, despite the fact there's already been a multitude of efforts this year to exspact

federal power in the auto industry, housing industry, energy industry, the health care industry, and now the financial services industry. the effort to cede more and more power to the federal government over more and more aspects of our daily lives is simply breathtaking. mr. speaker, this is the wrong approach to take and the american people deserve better. republicans have a better plan to end taxpayer funded bailouts. i urge my colleagues to oppose this rule and support our substitute amendment. i thank the gentleman. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from florida. mr. hastings: i'd inquire from the gentleman from texas if he has any remaining mr. sessions: i appreciate the gentleman asking. in fact i do have two speakers further who are expected. none are here at this time. but i would intend to consume that time. mr. hastings: i'm the last speaker for this side. so i'm going to reserve my time until the gentleman has closed for his side and has yielded back his time. mr. sessions: i appreciate the

gentleman providing such information. mr. speaker, ask to be recognized for such time i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. session: thank you very much, mr. speaker. mr. speaker, on monday, my colleagues and i sent a more recent letter to treasury secretary geithner that was a follow-up to a letter that had been spent -- sent by many, many republican members of congress to adhere to the december 31 tarp expiration date and to dedicate all returning funds to reducing the public debt. we had sent secretary geithner a letter december 7, 2009 that spoke about how the original concept of tarp and the troubled asset relief program

that we know as tarp should be implemented and used. the bottom line is that the money which was debated on this floor, passed on this floor of the united states, and signed by the president had a very clear understanding about the money that would be spent and the money that would be returned. i believed that secretary geithner should respond to this letter to let this body know and to let these signatures of this letter to know how he intends to approach this tarp money being returned. there was a report earlier in the week that virtually 90% of this money has been repaid. and yet what we see in this bill is some $200 billion more

in a permanent fund that would be established. you and i both recognize that $200 billion more worth of money of going on behalf of and spent would simply extend our deficit. our deficit in 2007 was $161 billion. the deficit in 2009 is $1,400,000,000. this is a nine times growth since our friends, the democrats, have taken control of congress. mr. speaker, this country was not attacked like we were in 9/11. mr. speaker, we have not had another katrina. mr. speaker, we have not had the things which have been

natural disasters which were dealt with by republicans in the majority. this is pure and simple, spending that has taken place, that has been raised 85% in the last two years. to say that someone has laid that at a doorstep and to have raised the deficit spending from $161 billion in 2007 to $1,400,000,000,000 in 2009 and blame that on anyone else other than the people who voted for it, which is the democrat majority. would be a misnomer. that is mismanagement. mr. speaker, at this time i'd like to yield five minutes to the distinguished gentleman from fullerton, california, the gentleman, congressman royce. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for five minutes. mr. royce: thank you, mr. speaker.

i rise in opposition to the rule and to this legislation. because for the first time in history washington will be at the center of our financial system. this is not the way our founders intended this system to work. it didn't intend for the decisions and political poll to come out of washington. for the first time in history we will institutionalize the too big to fail doctrine that has plagued our economy for too long. and for the first time in history, congress is authorizing perpetual bailout authority by those in washington. i have opposed these bailouts. and i have opposed the bill as put forward by -- over the last 14 months because of the concern i had with the precedent that would be set by using tax dollars to bail out failed institutions. and now we are going to do it far into the future.

and unfortunately, it appears that that precedent that was set last fall is now becoming official u.s. policy should this legislation become law. now, our democratic colleagues have controlled the congress for the last three years. i think while some will try to portray this resolution fund as something other than taxpayers paying for the mistakes of failed financial firms, i would direct my colleagues to the very language in this bill to page 406, line 22, and it says there, borrowing from the treasury, i quote, the corporation may borrow from the treasury and the secretary of the treasury is authorized to lend to the corporation on such terms as may be fixed by the corporation and secretary such funds as in the judgment of the board of directors of the corporation are required. unquote. now, this is saying the

resolution fund in every institution that falls under its purview has the support of who? the u.s. taxpayer. that you are going to be on the hook for these loans. my colleague from california, mr. sherman, referred to this authority as tarp on steroids. well, considering that the bill fails to even put a cap on the potential taxpayer exposure, i think mr. sherman is spot on. it is indeed tarp on steroids. and while some have compared this model to the fdic insurance fund, well, that's, folks, like comparing apples to oranges. the fdic fund is backed by the full faith and credit of the federal government to protect insured deposits inside the fund. that's what the fdic fund does. while there is a level of moral hazard that comes with this support, insured deposits are only a small portion of our financial system. here it extends far beyond

that. this bill gives that type of government support to the vast majority of our capital markets. it is a fundamentally flawed approach. it is what economists call morale hazard for a reason. it is a hazard. we need to scale back that government safety net under our financial system not expand it to every possible institution. and we need to signal to markets that the federal government is out of the business of bailing out failed firms. that is the only way to officially put an end to the two big too fail problem. this legislation fails to take that critical step. and i urge my colleagues to oppose this rule and oppose the underlying legislation for a second reason as well. that is my concern with the consumer protection agency, also known as the credit czar. it weakens our regulatory model. every one of our banking

regulators has come in to testify in the financial services committee on this issue of separating safety and soundness regulation from consumer protection regulation. many have raised the comparison between this model and the regulatory model over fannie mae and freddie mac because with fannie mae and freddie mac which failed and lost $1 trillion, you had the regulator focused on safety and soundness who was saying one thing, but you had h.u.d. that was enforcing the affordable housing goals that congress had given h.u.d., those housing goals were to have one half of the portfolio in subprime lending, in alt a loans. and to make zero down payment loans. this was what the congress was muscling through h.u.d. now, these things made the regulators very, very nervous. we had the federal reserve regulators come up and tell us, this is a systemic risk to the entire financial system what is

happening here. the overleveraging through this arbitrage now is 170-1. you have to allow the regulators to deleverage this. but congress would not. so to beat these affordable housing mandates, fannie and freddie straight into the junk mortgage market. they piled up over $1 trillion worth of subprime and alt a loans. and the housing goals were at odds of the liability of these firms and they led to 85% of their losses. as this past example has shown us, separating these two responsibilities can lead to unintended consequences like systemic financial failure down the road. if the ultimate objective of our regulatory reform effort is to ensure a more resilient and stable financial system, creating another agency with broad unchecked authority is not the right approach. i brought an amendment to the

rules committee which would have sold this problem by ensuring the safety and soundness regulators, have a say on the rule writing process at the cfpa, and guess what? it's unfortunate. my amendment was not made in order. it won't even be heard on this floor. i urge my colleagues to listen to those regulators, every one of which urged us to adopt that type of approach, the approach that was in my amendment, not allowed to go forward on this floor today. the safety and soundness of our financial institutions are critical. and we instead have undercut that and we are walking down that same step that congress took against the advice of the regulators with respect to fannie mae and freddie mac and the result of that as you-all know was the collapse of our housing market as a consequence of the collapse of those institutions. i yield back the balance of my time. mr. sessions: i thank the gentleman for speaking. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from florida. mr. hastings: mr. speaker, i continue to reserve the balance of my time.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from texas. mr. session: i thank you, mr. speaker. i'm sorry, i thought i understood he was going to give me that time he was the last to close. thank you very much. i appreciate the gentleman from california, senior member of the financial services committee, coming down to provide us an update of the reality of this bill. mr. speaker, we have been here arguing about deficits and who's responsible for what and who's guilty of acting like a drunk sailor, and who's spending money. the bottom line is that it is true george bush and republicans during eight years had some deficits, the largest was in 2008. some $450 billion. the first year of the democrats' spending spree over

$1,400,000,000,000 deficit. republicans seem to create jobs, some 5.3 million jobs that were created within this deficit that occurred. . and the sad part about the facts of the case are those are the facts of the case. the facts of the case are this shows where we're headed, the american people know it and that's why there's an outcry all across this country to stop what is happening even today with a bill that will lose 400,000 more jobs. look, i get it. i know that the speaker's political agenda, the three biggest items, health care, cap and trade and card check, will net lose more american jobs, i

get that, but so do the american people. so the republican party saying let's not lose 400,000 more jobs with the passage of this massive takeover of the financial services industry. we don't have the votes to stop it. but there are a lot of skid marks in the concrete today that say we shouldn't be doing this, we don't have the votes to stop it, but we're saying, let's be careful because we know where you're headed. mr. speaker, in closing i think while it's important to provide consumer safety and security in the marketplace our constituents are more concerned with the economy and the jobs. they see this as a massive government takeover and the industry knows exactly what it is also. my friends on the other side of the aisle are simply looking for more problems so they can put their government takeover solutions in place. week after week we come to the house floor to debate bills, bills that kill our economy,

diminish jobs and put us further into debt, whether it's cap and trade, health care or now today the government takeover of the financial sector with the barney frank bill. we are talking about hundreds of thousands and soon to be millions of jobs at a time of record unemployment. we ask the democrat majority to please just put a caveat in here that if this bill were going to lose more than one million jobs, let's not do it. the democrats on the partyline basis said, look, pal, our agenda is more important than any facts of the case about losing jobs. so, the republican parties a's on the floor here today asking -- party's on the floor here today asking that we defeat this rule, defeat this bill, defeat the things which are going on which will encourage more borrowing, more taxing, more spending, record deficits, record unemployments and of

course making sure that the government wins every time. -- every tie. we disagree with the democrat majority. we disagree with the politics, the policies and we disagree with the results. the republican party will be voting no today, mr. speaker. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from florida. mr. hastings: mr. speaker, i appreciate very much the opportunity to speak on this measure and i yield myself the balance of my time and would you tell me how much time i have, mr. speaker? the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman has 15 minutes remaining. mr. hastings: i shall not use all of that time, mr. speaker, but i'm very much tempted because my good friend, and he is my good friend, seems to fail to understand some of the things that we do and have done.

one of the things that i think would help some context and perspective is the subject of jobs which should be and i believe is the concern of the 435 voting members of the united states house of representatives and the six delegates and representatives from the territories. let's not continue down the path of myth. when my mom was alive and she, like many of our mothers, became interested more and in what we do in congress -- more in what we do in congress by looking at it on television and at some point, i don't remember the day, when i came home and she said, ya'll always talk about what happened before. she says, you know, ford said,

nixon did it and card said reagan did it and bush said reagan did it, she said, if do you that then george washington must have done it. if you keep going back all the time. so let's start with some real numbers, not something that is created, and get one thing straight. when we talk about spending, whether it's republican or democrats that spend on behalf of the american people, we rarely do anything other than talk about costs, we don't talk about benefits. and so toward that end i would only use -- a considerable list of areas that i could address that the democrats have spent money on and i would ask any of our colleagues, do they feel that we should not have spent

$31 billion in science, technology, innovation, math education, cutting-edge research and advanced manufacturing technologies and work force training? that was passed by the house of representatives. i would ask my friends, is there anything about national security troops and veterans that they would not have spent on? on the fiscal year supplemental for the rest of 2009 provides our troops with erg they -- everything they need to wind down the war that we shouldn't have been in in the first place, iraq, and changed the strategy in afghanistan, requiring a progress report and making retroactive payments to 185,000-plus service members whose enlistments were involuntarily extended since 9/11.

that was signed into law. would they not have spent that money? would they not have spent the money expanding the new g.i. bill benefits to cover the full cost of college education for all children of fallen united states service members? that was signed into law. would they not have spent the money on a 3.4% raise for our troops, strenening military readiness, expanding support for military families such as health care and housing, focusing on our strategy in afghanistan and pakistan and redeployment from iraq and military procurement reform? that was signed into law. would they not have spent the money on one of our top priorities of veterans groups, authorizing congress to approve v.a. medical care appropriations one year in advance, to ensure

reliable and timely funding and prevent politics from ever delaying v.a. health care funding? that was signed into law. would they not have spent the money on strengthening quality health care for more than five million veterans by investing 15% more than 2009 for medical care benefits, claims, processes and facility improvements? that was passed by the house and i could go on the entire 15 minutes on that. but let me go to where i digress from. richard nixon created during his administration and received credit for and that's what these presidents do, the creation of 9.4 million jobs. you understand president ford, under strenuous circumstances, his administration was credited with creating 1.8 million jobs.

under president reagan, reagan, coming in, with a near identical in many respects after 9/11 footnote write interest there, when my colleague mentioned katrina, i'm sure he knows that we haven't finished what's needed to be done with with reference to the -- reference to the people on the gulf coast and specifically in the city of new orleans, but to president reagan's credit and duringhood administration and whatever tax decreases on however else it was achieved, i can assure you that the exact number are 16 million jobs. under president bush, george h.w., 2.5 million jobs. under bill clinton, 23.1 million jobs. under president bush, and my friend from texas' majority congress that at one point had the house, the senate and the

presidency, under his administration, taking into consideration everything that he has talked about, three million jobs. one track record on record. now, what's needed here, heek, is some fair and -- mr. speaker, is some fair and straight forward accounting and not the offbudget stuff that i have heard here during the period of time that i'm here and that i heard from my colleague. what this bill will do and what this rule permits us to discuss is not offbudget kind of accounting, it's sort of like the same kind of offbudget accounting that wall street does, that my friends on the other side seem to think we should do, no, fair and straightforward accounting. my good friend from california that i served with him on the african subcommittee, when we were in the majority, we

traveled together, an outstanding person and congress person, but when he came in here, he described that accountants say this is a moral hazard. i'll tell what you a moral hazard is, a moral hazard is putting wars offbudget and not being prepared to pay for them and not asking the american people to make the necessary sacrifices in order that all of us, rich and poor, black and white, conservative and liberal, will pay our fair share to protect this great country of ours, enough of all of this doom talking and finger pointing. what is needed is a great consensus for all of us to be able to go forward, to straighten out our nation and we can do this and i believe that we will. one of the primary culprits of this current recession was a regulatory system that looked out for the wealth of wall street firms rather than the security of average american consumers.

this legislation, however, recognizes that the strength of our financial system is not measured simply by the value of the dow jones. it's measured by the prosperity of the american people. one of my friends, phil hare, who is here, says, it ain't the g.d.p., it's the j.o.b. and i believe mr. sessions mr. sessions k-n-o-w what i'm talking about. our constituents -- he to be known they're not going to be taken advantage of. they deserve to know that our financial regulations will stop those institutions who engage in irresponsible practices without placing an unnecessary burden on those who are acting in the best interest of their consumers. and they deserve to know that this congress, republican and democrat, should not and i believe the democrats will not

stand idly by, allowing monstrous financial institutions to put our entire economy at risk, rake in billions and shell out egregious bonuses while everyday americans lose their life savings and struggle from paycheck to paycheck. the wall street reform and consumer protection act and we should give barney frank and the financial services committee, republican and democrat, every credit for extraordinary work in these extremely difficult times for our country. but this protection act makes reasonable and responsible changes to our financial regulatory system and enacts long-needed consumer protections. after months of debate, countless hearings and votes on this very floor, this rule will finally allow for its complete and timely consideration. mr. speaker, i urge a yes vote

on the previous question and on the rule and i yield back the balance of my time and i move the previous question on the resolution. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the preeven question is ordered. the question is on adoption of the resolution. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. in the opinion of the chair, the ayes have it. the resolution is agreed to and without objection the -- mr. sessions: i ask for the yeas and nays on the rule. the speaker pro tempore: the yeas and nays are requested. those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. members will record their votes by electronic device. this will be a 15-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the taxpayer exposure, i

think mr. sherman is spot on. it is indeed tarp on steroids. and while some have compared

reconsider is laid on the table. the speaker pro tempore: the house will be in order. members will take their seats, let's clear the aisles. let's take all conversations outside the chambers.

the gentleman from colorado. >> thank you, mr. speaker. by direction of the committee on rules i call up house resolution 964 for its immediate consideration. the speaker pro tempore: the clerk will report the resolution. the clerk: house calendar number 141, house resolution 964. resolved, that at any time after the adoption of this resolution the speaker may, pursuant to clause 2-b of rule 18, declare the house resolved into the committee of the whole house on the state of the union for further consideration of the bill h.r. 4173 to provide for financial regulatory reform, to protect consumers and investors, to enhance federal understanding of insurance issues, to regulate the over-the-counter derivatives markets, and for other purposes. no further general debate shall be in order.

section 2-a, the bill as amended shall be considered for amendment under the five-minute rule and shall be considered as read. all points of order against provisions in the bill, as amended, are waived. b, notwithstanding clause 11 of rule 18, no further amendment to the bill, as amended, shall be in order except the amendments printed in the report of the committee on rules accompanying this resolution and amendments en bloc described in section 3 of this resolution. c, each amendment printed in the report of the committee on rules shall be considered only in the order printed in the report, except as specified in section 4 of this resolution, may be offered only by a member designated in the report, shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for the time specified in the report equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an opponent, shall not be subject to amendment, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question.

d, all points of order against amendments printed in the report of the committee on rules or amendments en bloc described in section 3 of this resolution are waived except those arising under clause 9 or 10 of rule 21. section 3, it shall be in order at any time for the chair of the committee on financial services or his designee to offer amendments en bloc consisting of amendments printed in the report of the committee on rules accompanying this resolution not earlier disposed of. amendments en bloc offered pursuant to this section shall be considered as read, shall be debatable for 20 minutes equally divided and controlled by the chair and ranking minority member of the committee on financial services or their designees, shall not be subject to amendment, and shall not be subject to a demand for division of the question. the original proponent of an amendment included in such amendments en bloc may insert a statement in the congressional record

immediately before the disposition of the amendments en bloc. the speaker pro tempore: members, please take your seats and take the conversations outside the chamber. let's clear the aisles, the center aisle, the side aisles. we will not proceed until everyone has taken their seats. the clerk will proceed. the clerk: section 4, the chair of the committee of the whole may recognize for consideration of any amendment printed in the report of the committee on rules accompanying this resolution out of the order printed, but not sooner than 30 minutes after the chair of the committee on financial services or his designee announces from the floor a request to that effect. section 5, at the conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the committee shall rise and report the bill, as amended, to the house with such further amendments as may have

been adopted. in the case of sundry amendments reported from the committee, the question of their adoption shall be put to the house en gros and without division of the question. the previous question shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage without intervening motion except one motion to recommit with or without instructions. section 6, the chair may entertain a motion that the committee rise only if offered by the chair of the committee on financial services or his designee. the chair may not entertain a motion to strike out the enacting words of the bill as described in clause 9 of rule 18. section 7, during consideration of h.r. 4173, the chair may reduce to two minutes the minimum time for electronic voting under clause 6 of rule 18 and clauses 8 and 9 of rule 20. section 8, in the engrossment of h.r. 4173, the clerk is authorized to make technical and conforming changes to amendatory

instructions. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from colorado. mr. perlmutter: thank you, mr. speaker. for the purposes of debate only, i yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from texas, mr. sessions. i also ask unanimous consent that all members be given five legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on house resolution 964. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, so ordered. mr. perlmutter: i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. perlmutter: mr. speaker, house resolution 964 provides

for consideration of amendments to h.r. 4173, the wall street reform and consumer protection act of 2009. the rules provide for consideration of 36 amendments and authorize the chairman of the financial services committee to move amendments en bloc. in the case of amendments reported from the committee, the question of their adoption in the house should be put en gros and without division of the question. the rule provides one motion to recommit with or without instructions and allows the chair to reduce to two minutes the minimum time for electronic voting and also authorizes the clerk to make technical and conforming changes to amend atory instructions. mr. speaker, as we've seen over the past year, our financial system is broken and we can no longer afford to maintain the status quo.

we faced a recession, i call it a republican recession, based on the wild west practices of wall street and the republican congress and the bush administration. and as a result of this republican recession, we're talking about people losing their investments and retirement savings. last year when the stock market reacted to the heart attack our banking system suffered and the countless jobs that were lost throughout the recession. this bill makes critical reforms to our financial system to address this wild west era of lax regulation that the bush administration encouraged. when wall street operates like the wild west, main street suffers and that's precisely what we've seen for the last few years. the wall street reform and consumer protection act preserves our economic system, restores confidence and takes reasonable steps to prevent

future meltdowns. it establishes a robust regulatory oversight regime creating transparency in areas previously hidden from the public. in this bill we address consumer protection, investor protection, regulation of hedge funds, credit rating agencies, insurance, derivatives, executive pay, mortgage reform, and we eliminate too big to fail. loopholes are closed, consolidated regulation is improved and transparency is increased so there is no place to hide. but, mr. speaker, yesterday we heard repeatedly from the other side that this bill puts the taxpayers on the hook in addressing too big to fail. taxpayers were put on the hook by the lax regulation of the bush administration which cost this country and each and every

citizen trillions and trillions of dollars and millions of jobs. four million jobs during the last year of the bush administration. in this bill with those institutions that are so big that they would create a domino effect such as we saw last year, we liquidate or closed those firms at no expense to the taxpayer. and i put in precisely provisions that any moneys get paid to the taxpayer first. i'd like our colleagues on the other side of the aisle, we do not want th firms to reorganize. we want to put them out of their existence. for no one is too big to fail. there is no guarantee for these institutions, and precisely what we do is provide preventive measures before this comes about. the vest tour, increasing capital -- the vestture, increasing capital, a whole variety of preventive measures

before bringing about a liquidation. but ultimately, if an institution that effects the financial market is so complex, ultimately it's a liquidation. this bill is more about reforming our financial system, though. it's about people's lives and the jobs lost and restoring confidence to a broken system. none of us want to ever face anything like we did last year, and this bill will help ensure that the wild west mentality and lax regulation promoted by the republican party which led to huge frauds and robberies like mannedoff, stanford and their various ponzi schemes doesn't happen -- madoff, stanford and their various ponzi schemes doesn't happen again. this occurred under the bush administration. we are reforming our regulatory system so it is able to fix

problems before they become a threat to our economic system. the changes this bill makes are essential to rebuilding main street and getting credit flowing to small businesses, creating jobs and rebuilding our economy. i urge my colleagues to vote in favor of the rule and the underlying bill. with that i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from colorado reserves. the gentleman from texas. mr. sessions: mr. speaker, thank you so very much, and i appreciate the gentleman from colorado yielding me the time. and i will use such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. sessions: you know, mr. speaker, i do admit, i know the gentleman was not here back in 2003. but on september 11, 2003, president bush formally asked the congress for legislation to regulate freddie and fannie, seeing a problem that was

ahead. the ranking member of the financial services committee, the gentleman, mr. frank, had a quick response that said, there's no problem. there's no problem. that's the last thing we should be doing. their books are clean. they knew that everything was ok. in 2005, just the next session, legislation did pass and was filibustered in the senate by democrats. filibustered by democrats. to say that the wild west exists would be a misnomer. in financial services terms. there were people who broke the law. there have always been people who break the law, but the people who broke the law knew that they were breaking the law and did so at the expense of other people's money.

but if you want to talk about recession, let's talk about the recession that we're in right now. after three years of democrat control in this house of representatives. let's talk about 85% increase in spending that this body is going to take up a bill today to spend 85% more in the last two years by this democrat-controlled congress. so i think that we should be very careful about trying to describe a problem when in fact someone else's adding to it and making it worse. today we are going to consider a 1,300-page bill which will be a federal takeover of the financial services industry. that's a heck of an answer. an hour ago i discussed the

flaws of the underlying bill, and now you'll hear about a number of amendments that were shut out by our friends, the democrats. they shut out democrats, they shut out republicans, they shut out bipartisan amendments, and here we are on the -- we have on the floor today this massive bill. i offered a precautionary amendment that would make this bill ineffective if the g.a.o. were to find that this bill would kill more than one million free enterprise jobs. i stood before the rules committee and said, if this bill kills more than one million jobs, let's not do it. forget it. on a party line vote, my friends in the rules committee, the democrats voted no. that's because we're more concerned about politics than we are about the american people and jobs and the economy. i also offered two commonsense amendments to simply clarify that this bill will not create

a bottomless fund for frivolous lawsuits by trial lawyers. the first amendment deals with giving shareholders a nonbinding vote on executive compensation packages. my amendment clarifies that this new vote creates no new private right of action. without this amendment, trial lawyers will be able to exploit a brand new opportunity to shakedown companies for huge payments . this commonsense amendment was rejected by the rules committee on a party line vote. once again, the democrats, no, no. the second amendment i introduced was to protect business from frivolous lawsuits. it simply clarifies that none of the new registration requirements for investment advisors of private firms should be construed as making a private right of action. this is a noncontroversial issue, or it should be, seeking to protect investors from frivolous lawsuits. and this, too, was rejected.

mr. speaker, it's my belief that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle care more about creating trial lawyer bonanza and protecting businesses and our financial systems and certainly the free enterprise system. in an effort to clarify the intent of the executive compensation provisions, i introduced an amendment that would have provided sunshine and transparency for shareholders by requiring full s.e.d. disclosure about who is financing that to influence votes. on this new connelly mandated nonbinding shareholder resolution. -- on this new congressionally mandated nonbinding shareholder resolution. it is about who is trying to influence a vote. of course, we never want to do that. trial lawyers would hate that, so the democrat party of the rules committee, they got it, they complied, no. as federal candidates, we're obligated to disclose to the federal commission the name, occupation and amount given by

our donors. we require this because public interest is in advancing by letting voters know who funds each campaign, each campaign is important. my amendment asks for the same disclosure so that shareholders know who is trying to influence a vote. what people, what organizations, what groups, what consumer advocates. the amount of money and who's influencing this. surprisingly, this amendment was also voted down. so much for transparency in the light of day. the goal of regulatory reform should be to help, not hinder, our economy and to sustain economic growth and job creation. this legislation does the opposite. it takes a one-size-fits-all approach to governing, undermining economic competitiveness and approach. that's why so many business groups oppose this.

the democratic solution will only increase government intervention in financial markets, ration resources, limit consumer choices, raise taxes, dictate wages and kill jobs. mr. speaker, the motion is clear. my democratic colleagues are using policy and regulation to force a government takeover of the free enterprise system while paving the road for trial lawyers and killing american jobs. i guess nothing new we should get used to it. i encourage my colleagues to vote against this rule and the underlying legislation. i reserve the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman reserves. the gentleman from colorado. mr. perlmutter: yes. i'd like to yield two minutes to the gentleman from texas, mr. doggett, two minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. doggett: mr. speaker, a year ago as home foreclosures shot up and retirement accounts fell to new lows, after years of permissiveness toward

corporate misconduct, the bush administration responded by handing wall street the biggest subprime loan in american history, using american taxpayer money. i opposed that bush bailout because it did not provide adequate protection for our taxpayers. i wanted those who caused the crisis to be responsible for a little more of the cleanup. instead, wall street banks took taxpayer money and they continued their scams with teaser rates and hiding rate increases in the fine print. now, today, through this legislation, we respond with extensive reforms. maybe not all the reforms i personally would prefer, but reforms that can really empower the cops on the beat. one of the most important of these is the consumer finance protection agency, envisioned by professor elizabeth warren, who democrats appointed to head the oversight committee over all of these bailout funds. professor warren is

independent, she's a visionary and expert in this area. working with our colleagues, including representatives delahunt and other, we have worked to correct the things that caused this crisis. there's an old line in a song, the cops are against the robbers, but the robbers are against the cops. we need to create a new squad of financial cops to protect taxpayers from others' greed. it is time we enacted the meaningful protections for american consumers that are embodied in this legislation. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from texas. mr. sessions: i'd like to yield to the gentleman from

california, mr. dreier. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. dreier: i rise in strong opposition to this rule. it has been fascinating to listen to the debate here and a lot of hyperbole as come forward. we've heard times like the republican recession, wild west mentality, and the fascinating thing i have just been talking to a couple of my staff members about is that much of the legislation which is being criticize sod harshly was signed into law by not george w. bush but the president before george w. bush, president bill clinton. so i think that we should recognize that there's been a lot of bipartisanship in creating what we all admit have been excesses. unfortunately, mr. speaker, we found that the are regulators were asleep at the switch. the name bernie may dauf was thrown out earlier. the fact of the mat -- may doff

was thrown out earlier. the fact of the matter is we know the regulators were asleep at the switch when it came to dealing with that. we con look at a wide range of other areas where inadequate oversight took place. the question right now is, do we want to create what many of us are concerned about, that is unintended consequences. one of the things we found over the past year, plus, is a tremendous contraction in credit. individuals who want to utilize their credit cards or start a business, buy a home, have been having real difficulty gaining access to credit. we've seen this contraction take place. my concern as we look at this legislation is that we're going to take this contraction of credit and make it permanent. we will basically be making it permanent. why? because we are going to codify a regulatory structure, which is going tounds mine the ability of the american people

to have access to the best quality product at the lowest possible price. a lot of things have been said and done over the past year which i think lead us to be overreacting this massive expansion of government. we can start with the stimulus bill, cap and trade, this 2,500 page bill we just reported out, all these appropriations bills that had an 85% increase in non-defense discrigsnear -- discretionary spending. this is not a way to encourage and lay the groundwork for us to get our economy moving again. so i'm very concerned about that. i want to talk about one particular amendment, mr. speaker, that i offered in the rules committee and that amendment dealt with a huge inequity that unfortunately took place when the economic downturn began. we unfortunately have seen a lot of financial institutions go under.

one of them went under very early on, a california institution known as indymac bank. at that time time, july of last year we found that the $100,000 guarantee, and that was it. shortly thereafter, as more institutions went down, we found that we increased that level to $250,000. my colleague, mrs. harmon, introduced an amendment which i offered in the rules committee earlier today, which would simply allow us to have a chance to debate that. there are just under 9,000 depositors and a total of $233 million that would be making these individuals whole who have been depositors because the depositors in other financial institutions, mr. speaker, were able to have the $250,000 guarantee provided, yet these depositors at indymac, victimized in the same

way others were in the failure of institutions, were prevented from being able to do that we simply wanted the house to debate that amendment so we'd have a chance to make these hardworking men and women, who not -- from not only california but across the country, who happened to be depositors at this institution, to be able to receive what every other depositor who dealt with a failed institution, following its failure, was able to face. i offer ms. harr pon's amendment, happy to join with her on doing that, and on a party line vote we as republicans said this should be made in order. the democrats chose to vote enmeas against allowing a -- enmasse against allowing a debate to take place. in light of that and the unintended consequences which i right now am foreseing, i hope

very much that we can dee de-feet this rule, defeat the rule because so many amendments shah you have -- that should have been made in order were not made in order, will allow us to come back and put together a decent work product that can get our economy back on track. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from colorado. mr. perlmutter: first to respond to my good friend from california, talked about getting the best quality product at the best price. part of the problem we had, madam speaker is that you didn't know if you had the best quality product because the way things were done under the bush administration and the lax regulation that occurred, you didn't know whether there was money in the bernie may doff account and the approach here -- ma doff account and the approach here -- madoff account and the approach here is to allow people to scrutinize. i'm going to yield three minutes to -- i will yield to

my good friend for about 10 seconds. >> i want to say that the issue of transparency and disclosure is what we are focusing on with the alternative we put forward. this bill -- mr. perlmutter: reclaiming my time, i would say that my friend is mistaken because the bill proposed by my friends on the republican side does nothing but protect wall street. not make it transparent and to avoid hidden, you know, bombs that might go off from time to time. i would like to yield now three minutes to my colleague from colorado, mr. polis. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. mr. polis: thank you, madam speaker, i ask unanimous consent to revise and extend. the speaker pro tempore: so ordered. mr. polis: i rise in support of the wall street and consumer protection act of 2009. i'd like to thank my colleagues on the financial services committee and their staffs for their hard work and i'd like to thank the other committees that worked on this bill, including

the agriculture committee, the judiciary committee, the committee on government oversight and reform and oof course my chairwoman slaughter on the committee on rules. the crafting of this legislation has been an all hands on deck effort. the rule is a fair rule. i'd like to thank chairman frag for including two amendments i offered into his manager's amendment. our economy is driven by private investment. in order to encourage investment we need to give investors peace of mind. in the event of fraud, they'll have recourse. many investors realize significant losses as a result of investment frauds, the most infamous one that of bernie may dauf -- may doff. -- madoff. the securities investor protection organization is a wise insurance program that's imp simply outdated an insufficient my first amendment

is an important step in this evolution. it directs the comptroller yen to study the feasibility of optional premium based insurance for investors. this will give investors choice and peace of mind to know that should they become a victim of fraud, they'll be protected and will be able to have a cash settlement in the event of fraud to begin rebuilding. as a representative that's home to one of our nation's premier public institutions of higher learning, the university of colorado at boulder, i'm keenly aware of college affordability. families have fewer funds to pay for higher education, resulting in less education for students and families. because we recognize that subsidizing investment education yields positive economic results. high interest private industry loans, described as equal alternatives, have put students

into debt. a large number of students are taking out debt with with rates as high as 18% and doesn't offer the same repayment options as federal loans. one of four private borrowers took out no stafford loans and many of them didn't apply for student aid. before a private loan is funded, financial aid advisors inform students about the federal loans available to them. in 2007, two of three students hasn't exhausted their lower cost federal financial aid. students and their families should apply for and exhaust all their less available financial options before turning to risky private student loans. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from texas is recognized. mr. sessions: thank you, madam

speaker. i'd like to yield two minutes to the the gentlewoman from the great state of illinois, mrs. biggert. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized. mrs. biggert: i rise in strong opposition to this restrictive rule. i filed several amendments to protect taxpayers and the economy from regulatory mismanagement. unfortunately, they were summarily rejected by the rules committee. on a bill of this magnitude and significance, i would hope the majority wouldn't be so eager to shut the door on bipartisan amendments or for that matter, any good ideas from any party that would improve the bill. thanks to the rule, madam speaker, amendments i offered to prevent a shift of u.s. business overseas are barred from consideration. my amendments would have preserved language in the underlying bill, as a result of amendments i offered in the financial services committee that unfortunately will be undone by the peterson-frank amendment. the result, according to system provided by one of my constituents, was the head of

the large of the -- largest u.s. futures exchange will be a dramatic shift of transactions out of the u.s. exchanges and other to foreign competitors abroad. the two amendments i offered at rules would have safeguarded competition, flexibility, and innovation in the u.s. markets. at a time of record job losses, how could we afford to push business out of the country? my third amendment would have prevented the misuse of housing counseling funds by acorn and its affiliates, would have withdrawn acorn's federal housing ecertification. given the group's clear throing illegal and inappropriate activities, how can we divert precious resources from legitimate housing counselors working overtime to help strucking homeowners. unfortunately, this bill will not allow an up or down vote on any of these issues. these issues deserve a full and fair debate and a vote on the house floor. i urge my colleagues to oppose this rule and i yield back my

time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back. the gentleman from colorado is recognized. mr. perlmutter: i yield three minutes to the gentlewoman from maine, ms. pingree. the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman is recognized for three minutes. ms. pingree: i thank the gentleman from colorado, my good friend on the rules committee, both for yielding me the time and for his hard work on the rules committee. i know committee members have worked long and hard on this particular bill that's going to be before us. for too long we have looked the other way as the big banks and credit card companies ran roughshod over american consumers. while exploiting the polls, they've acted recklessly and irresponsibly to line their pockets, leaving american families and small businesses to pay the price. effective reform is vital to creating jobs and growing our economy. 24 bill puts in place common sense rules to ensure that the same irresponsibility -- irresponseable actors are not allowed to jeopardize the

recovery we have worked so hard to begin this bill, madam speaker, h.r. 4173, holds the big banks and credit card companies accountable. today we can create a new consumer financial protection agency to make sure the credit card companies stop misleading consumers with hidden fees buried in the small print ortizer rates that leuer people in and let the banks make huge profits. americans look to the f.d.a. and the consumer products safety commission to keep the food we eat, the medicine we take and the toys we buy for our children safe. now it's time to make sure that the financial products and services that we buy are secure, understandable, and transparent. with this bill we can ensure that hardworking families in maine and across the country are never again on the hook for risky and irresponsible schemes by putting an end to taxpayer bailouts and too big to fail firms that threaten to bring down our entire ghism can inject trands parentcy and accountability into a financial

system that's far too long been allowed to operate behind closed doors, trading complex financial instruments in secret, without the necessary regulations and enforcement. madam speaker, the big banks, irresponsible mortgage lenders have made a mess out of our economy. they have expected the american taxpayer to clean up. we can't let that happen again. it's time to ensure that those who acted so irresponsibly are finally held accountable and made to play by rules that are fair. i realize this bill is not perfect. it could go further, and i think many rightfully think we should go further, but the bill before us today is a critical first step in helping our financial markets. we must act now to create jobs and grow the economy. this is the fair and commonsense regulation that the american public expects and deserves. i yield back the balance of my time.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentlewoman yields back the balance of her time. the gentleman from texas. mr. sessions: madam speaker, the republican party is made up of a group of members here in congress who have various backgrounds, and one of them whom i'm getting ready to yield to came as a small businessman from a manufacturing firm that employed people, cared about their community and families that worked therein. and i'm delighted to yield two minutes to the gentleman from clarence, new jersey, the gentleman, mr. lee. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. mr. lee: thank you. madam speaker, i rise today to oppose the rule and speak on behalf of two commonsense amendments i offered, which were not accepted. first amendment sponsored with my friend from texas, mr. hensarling, simply limits the power of the consumer financial product agency's credit czar if the national employment rate remains at these astronomical levels. studies have shown that this bill will stifle job growth across our entire economic

spectrum. we should be focusing on job creation, not job extinction. handing off more control of the private sector to unelected bureaucrats is not going to solve our economic problems. the second amendment i offered would restrict the cfpa, this new massive agency created by this bill, from mandating disclosures to be made in any language other than tpwhrish. english is the principle language in which commerce is conducted in the united states. imagine the nightmare if disclosures must be reported in any more of the 300 languages that are spoken here in the united states. it would ultimately be sheer chaos. the cost of compliance for private businesses, private businesses to print materials in multiple languages accounts to more or less an add tax and pushing job losses further into the people in the unemployment

ranks. h.r. 4173 is going to eliminate jobs, raise taxes and create a new bailout authority and create a massive new government bureaucracy. i urge my colleagues to vote against this rule. with that i urge -- i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. the gentleman from colorado. mr. perlmutter: thank you, madam speaker. and i would just say to my friend from the financial services committee two things as to his amendments. it was in january of 2009, the last month that george bush was in office, that we had the highest job loss throughout this whole period. since that time it has been shrinking. so under the bush administration, tremendous job loss in 2008. up to four million jobs. and it has been those jobs, job losses have been shrinking ever since. i'd also say to my friend from

the financial services committee, we had this debate in the committee on the language issue. and as he knows, my grandparents from the ukraine, my grandfather came over here, was a successful businessman, but even over a 40-year or 50-year period he had difficulty with the written language. and where we've seen so much flawed and so much conartistry is with people who have difficulty with the language being taken advantage of. and part of this bill, the consumer protection bill, is so that we avoid that kind of fraud and schemery because of people who can't speak the language. so with that i'd yield a minute and a half to my friend from illinois, mr. quigley. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from illinois is recognized. mr. quigley: thank you, madam speaker. the speaker pro tempore: for a minute. mr. quigley: i rise today in support of this measure which includes two important proposals that i wrote and

worked with the financial services committee to include. the first one assures that regulators can do their jobs and regulate effectively for systemic risk. under current law, regulators are not best equipped to prevent systemic risky behavior because the focus is on individual firms, not on the system as a whole. my second measure that's included in the manager's amendment came from a constituent request and is strongly supported by groups like the afl-cio, the naacp and the fair housing alliance. it says if your loan modification is denied you deserve to know why. it makes the loan modification program more transparent by giving homeowners the ability to modify their net present value analysis. if the servicer used an incorrect credit score or misstated income or made any number of mistakes, then you might be improperly denied loan modification. i urge my colleagues to support this measure, which includes

both of these proposals. thank you, and i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from texas is recognized. mr. sessions: thank you, madam speaker. you know, madam speaker, the gentleman from colorado keeps trying to search and search and search and find who to pin this on, this bad economy and the job loss. well, i'd direct the gentleman, it's something we've known for a long, long time in this country. the answer is pin the tail on the donkey. mr. perlmutter: will the gentleman yield? mr. sessions: i yield two minutes to the gentleman from new jersey, mr. lance. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from new jersey is recognized for two minutes. mr. lance: thank you, madam speaker, and thank you, mr. sessions. i rise today in opposition to this restrictive rule and the underlying legislation. this bill will have severe negative consequences on our financial sector and our economy as a whole. specifically, i'm strongly

opposed to title 1 which would create a permanent bailout fund at the fdic, paid for in part by companies that will never see any real benefit. furthermore, while every member of this body supports increased consumer protection, title 4 of the bill related to that important issue could do more harm than good by restricting choice and further fightening consumer credit markets. the language of this title is far too broad and ill defined. its uncertainty will only hurt consumers while financial companies retreat from the market to avoid running afoul of a new federal bureaucracy. i'm also concerned with the title's insistence on completely separating consumer protection regulation from prudential, safety and soundness regulation. in my judgment, to accomplish either regulators should be looking at both. this bill does not accomplish that.

finally, i want to express my disappointment that this body would not be allowed to debate and vote on an issue important to all taxpayers, renewing the troubled assets relief program set to expire on december 31. i offered an amendment last evening in the rules committee to ensure that tarp and -- end as scheduled and any funds repaid or not yet spent is used for the statutorily mandated purpose for debt reduction and not for further spending. the amendment failed on a purely partisan basis. the president's plan announced earlier this week to use tarp to fund more governmental spending violates the intent of the law, does very little to create jobs and further adds to america's ever-growing debt burden. colleagues on both sides of the aisle believe we need to end tarp. this body should have been allowed to have a substitute debate on this issue. thank you, madam speaker. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from colorado.

mr. perlmutter: thank you, madam speaker. and to my good friend from texas, i think it's easy to know who to blame, and that is the policies of the republican congress and the president, george bush, because things fell apart, jobs were lost, trillions of dollars lost and companies fleeing as a result of those policies which we are trying to repair and correct. madam speaker, i'd like to know how much time each side has. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from colorado has 13 1/2 minutes. and the gentleman from texas has 11 1/2. mr. perlmutter: thank you, madam speaker. i'd like to yield three minutes to the gentleman from california, mr. sherman. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from california is recognized for three minutes. mr. sherman: i've had to sit here and listen as one republican after another comes town and says that this bill

facilitates bailouts. most of those republicans have quoted me. i did say that the treasury draft of this bill submitted last summer was tarp on steroids. but apparently they didn't notice that the bill changed in committee. and in fact the gentleman from new jersey came down and said he wants to end tarp, which i voted against twice, and that on a straight party line vote in committee we turned down his amendment. he didn't notice i voted for his amendment, and last i checked, i was a democrat. but i want to focus on the issue of bailouts, comparing the bill to the republican substitute. now, keep in mind that most of the bailouts we've done have not been through the tarp program but rather pursuant to sections of law that existed long ago, including 133 of the

1930 federal reserve act. it's that one code section alone that's allowed $3 trillion to be spent on what could be called bailouts. so since the biggest bailouts have come from the fed, we ought to end secrecy at the fed. the democratic bill includes the ron paul-alan grayson amendment to investigate the fed. for some reason the republican substitute does not. it allows the fed to continue to be exempt from many g.a.o. audits. now, i said the biggest bailouts are under 133 under the federal reserve act. that's been used for $3 trillion but the fed could legally use it for $33 trillion. the republican bill does very little to limit the fed's power under section 133.

the democratic bill includes my amendments to put a dollar limit on the amount the fed can obligate. and then my amendment to require that only the most secure loans are made. for some reason the republican bill limits the fed barely at all. section 1823 has been used by the fdic to make loan guarantees of $330 billion. and in fact there's no dollar limit on section 1823. what they've done with $330 billion is they could have done with $833 billion. the democratic bill suspends section 1823. the republican bill contains no limits on section 1823. so if you want to live in bailout nation, then you got to make sure that the fed doesn't lose its exemptions from audits. you have to make sure that the fed can continue unlimited dollar amounts under section -- mr. perlmutter: i'd yield my

friend 30 seconds. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. sherman: if you want to live in bailout nation, you have to make sure that the fed remains exempt from many audits. you have to make sure that the fed's powers under 133 which have been used to the tune of $3 trillion remain unlimited and could go to $30 trillion. and you have to keep the fdic with unlimited powers under 1823. if you want to live in bailout nation, you have to vote for the republican substitute. if you want to rein in the bailout powers of the executive branch and you have to -- if you want to make sure that the fed is subject to audit, you have to vote for the democratic bill. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from texas, for what purpose do you rise? mr. sessions: thank you, madam speaker. madam speaker, i'd like to yield two minutes to the gentleman from eden prairie, minnesota, the gentleman, mr. paulsen. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes.

mr. paulsen: i rise to oppose this rule because there were many amendments that would help this bill but was not made in order in the rules committee. these were good amendments that would assure the reforms we are making was smart and would not be harmful to the economy. one amendment i offered with representative tiahrt would guarantee the end, the end of the tarp bailout program at the end of this year and applied the remaining $200 billion-plus towards reducing the federal budget deficit. now, we all know that the tarp program has had a myriad of problems since day one. we've heard testimony in committee that has said the funds have not been properly monitored. this is the program that was used to fund executive bonuses by taxpayers. we've been told by the special inspector general that the program is almost certainly, quote, almost certainly going to result in a loss to the taxpayers. and last month it was just reported that now taxpayers could lose over $5 million in investments in foreign banks.

rather than ending this program once and for all, the administration announced yesterday they would extend the bailout for tarp for another 10 month, after the treasury secretary announce head wanted to work to put tarp out of its misery. taxpayers will be forced to stand idly by as congress pays over $200 million of taxpayer money as walking around money. what's more alarming is that the legislation before us creates a tarp second bailout program and more bailout authority. with all the problems we've had in the first bailout program, why is the federal government pursuing a sequel? without these amendment the underlying legislation will make it harder to create job, harder to get credit for companies and most importantly, make it more difficult for consumers to have freedom in their financial decisions. i would urge members to oppose this closed rule which has effectively prevented debate on

this measure. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from colorado. mr. perlmutter: i would remind the gentleman from minnesota that he has an amendment made in order and he and i co-sponsored an amendment which has become part of the manager's amendment and i would also remind him that he creates in this, a fund assessed against the banking institutions to deal with their liquidation there is no bailout. as much as my friends on the other side of the aisle would like to be on message and continue to repeat that, there's no bailout. i would like to yield three minutes to the gentleman from ohio, mr. driehaus. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. mr. driehaus: thank you, madam speaker. when the american people listen to this debate, they hear a lot of rhetoric but don't get much in the way of facts. because they weren't able to sit through all the committee hearings that so many of us went through.

i want to go through some facts. because i hear about amendments not being offered. the fact of the matter is that we have spent weeks marking up this bill in committee. we had over 65 hours of debate alone in the markup. now the hearings concerning these issues have been going on for the entire year. the number of republican amendments heard in committee, 137. 137. republican amendments heard in committee. over 50 roll call votes on those republican amendments. over 140 democratic amendments. and over 30 bipartisan amendments. days and days of markups. considering the legislation. what the republicans don't want you to pay any attention to is their inaction, for years, on

these critical issues, so when we had predatory lending legislation in 2001 they don't want to let you know it was ignored. that it was ignored again in 2002, in tree tui, in 2004, in 2005, in 2006, in 2007. they don't want you to know that for all the years that they were in power, they failed to take up this legislation. and now they have legislation and bring out stacks of paper. fewer words than a harry potter book. i don't know if we have to get as smile as "good night moon" or "harold and the purple crayon," i'm not sure what it takes, but this is a big topic. that's why we took so much time in committee to address the complexity of a derivatives market gone astray. that's why we took the time to address the complexity of mortgage-backed securities that weren't addressed during those many years republicans were in

power. the results of that inaction, millions of foreclosures across the united states. the worst recession since the great depression. over 700,000 jobs lost the month the president was sworn into office because of the inaction. of the republican party. so now when the american people demand we step up and we take action, what do they want to do? they want to do the same thing they did when they were in power for year after year after year, that is, nothing. madam chair, i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from texas. mr. sessions: thank you very much. i'd like to yield to the gentleman from fullerton, california, the gentleman, mr. royce, the distinguished gentleman from california, for three minutes. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for three minutes.

mr. royce: i'd like to make a point here, the democrats have been in control of this institution, the house and senate, back in november of 2006, the republicans lost control of the house and senate system of for 2007 and 2008 and 2009 the democrats have controlled this process. every spending bill originates in this house. and under that democratic leadership in this house, we have watched the unemployment rate more than double for the american public. and as far as those of us attempting to do something about the cook may mi schemes put forward years ago in 1992, in which we gave fannie mae and freddie mac and this congress, and it was under democratic leadership that this was done, we gave them the ability to go out there and participate in ar by tradge at 10 -- in arbitrage

at -- when you put that 10% down payment, when you say that 50% of their mortgage port foal yow be in subprime. when we see those results today. but let me speak to another issue. the opposition to this bill. i voted against the bailouts, and regardless of what you call it, this is an extension of of of bailout and while the new language regarding the state laws represents a step in the right direction, i believe it is far from sufficient and should be improve. there are aspects of the pre-emption standard for which pre-emption digs need to be clarified. in addition -- decisions need to be collar fid. -- clarified. these provisions are an unnecessary extension of state jurisdiction over federally chartered institutions that are

already subject to federal oversight, raise significant potential new liabilities and uncertainties and go far beyond the standards recognized in the recent supreme court decision in the quo moe case. i raise this issue because as it's currently written, the underlying legislation will move us in the wrong direction in terms of federal preemption. they threw out the articles of confederation and introduced the commerce clause to have one market. not a market where local governments could strangle free trade among the states. we have seen the inconsistencies of the regulatory frame wrk with the insurance market, where it is inefficient, anti-competitive, and fails to provide adequate consume brother texts. if we are looking for the most effective regulatory model for the financial sector, we should not move toward a regulatory framework with varying

standards from state to state for federally chartered institutions. i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from colorado has 6 1/2 minutes. the gentleman from texas has 6 1/2 minutes. mr. sessions: i would like to first say to my friend from california -- mr. perlmutter: i would like to first say to my friend from california, the house of representatives did pass legislation to reform fannie mae and freddie mac, it was bipartisan and i'm referring to an article from september 9, 2008, in the financialtimes.com which interviewed mr. oxley, the chairman of the financial services committee at the time, but the bill never was acted on and he said in that article, he fumed about the criticism of his house colleagues, all the hand wringing and bed-wetting

is not remembering how the house stepped up on this, he says. what did we get from the white house -- remember george bush was in the white house -- we got a one-fingered salute. that was from the republican chairman of the house financial services. mr. sessions: would the gentleman yield? mr. perlmutter: no i yield three minutes to my friend from north carolina, mr. watt. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for three minutes. mr. watt: i'm obviously a strong supporter of this legislation and was here on into the evening last night to express my support for it. but there's one aspect of it i want to point out that i have some discomfort with. that i would like to speak about. there's really nothing we can do about it, it's not going to cause me to vote against the bill, but i think we need to continue to work on it. the financial services version of the bill requires swap dealers and major participants to execute their standardized swaps on exchanges or swap

execution platforms. these provisions we thought were very important to the bill. and the reason for that is 15 years ago, the only way to search for a swap transaction was to use the telephone. it was time consuming, expensive, and a company was never sure it had found the best deal. today, new electronic technology creates pretrade price transparency and our -- the house version of this bill, the financial services version, rather, required the use of that platform for transparency purposes. so that companies could get the best price in an open, transparent market and so that regulators have a high resolution risk of -- view of risk as they move through the system.

it was our intent that the regulators would require the new technologies to be used for price discovery so that impartial, instantaneous information was available to all participants at the same time. so, we kind of lost the totality of that in merging the financial services version of the bill and the agriculture committee's version of the bill and i just want to rise to put it back on the radar screen as something that we need to continue to try to resolve when you've got 600 trillion over the counter derivatives business that needs to be -- there needs to be absolute transparency, as there is in the stock market. that's the only way you can bring this out of the shadows and onto a transparent platform

, so i hope we'll be able to continue to work with it. the chairman has been excellent on this issue. the chairman of financial services. and i hope we can continue the house and the senate moves these bills to figure out a way to make sure that we have the maximum amount of transparency as we did in the financial services version of the bill. with that, i thank the gentleman for yielding me time to raise this issue. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from texas. mr. sessions: without challenging the gentleman's words on the floor, i challenge anyone to think that there'll be $600 trillion worth of derivatives business that has taken place in this country. madam speaker, at this time, i'd like to yield two minutes to the gentleman from lubbock, texas, the gentleman from the

financial services committee, mr. neugebauer. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. neugebauer: i thank the gentleman. secretary geithner gave my colleagues on the other side of the aisle a christmas present yesterday he extended their revolving slush fund until october of next year. going down the road of rewarding bad behavior and punishing good behavior. the american people could see from the beginning this tarp money, this slush fund, they were told it was for energy purposes. now we're being told maybe the financial emergency is over. if it's over we ought to be giving that money back to the american people. or unfortunately, some of that money was borrowed. and we're boar throwing money from the chinese. but no, we're going to put that money back into a slush fund and now we're going to use it for whatever purposes our colleagues on the other side of the aisle decide to do wit. let me tell you, they're very good at it. if somebody to teach you how to

spend, they can teach you how to spend. unfortunately, mr. president, and two of my colleagues on the other side oaf the aisle, we're spending money we don't have, we're borrowing money. now we're talking about making a permanent slush fund, a permanent tarp fund, over $150 billion. the american people are tired of the bailout, they're tired of making their own mortgage payment and then being asked to make their neighbor's house payment. the american people are getting their financial hughes hold in order. but the other part of this bill that bothers me and should bother the american people is we're going to have this new czar or czarina this is going to tell you what kind of financial products are appropriate for you. maybe there's only a certain kind of mortgage you should have. a certain kind of car loan you should have. a certain kind of student loan you should have when you're trying to send your kids to college. but the big concern i have is it's going to begin to hurt the credit, limit the credit for small businesses across this country, the people who create

the most jobs in this country and have the ability to bring us out of this economic slump, but now we're going to be able to put this big regulatory umbrella over them -- 30 seconds? defeat this bill. it's a bad bill. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from colorado. mr. perlmutter: thank you, madam speaker. i ask my friend from texas how many more speakers he has because we have no more speakers and we'll close. mr. sessions: thank you. it it sounds like to me that you'd like me to take the time and close. mr. perlmutter: yes. the speaker pro tempore: does the gentleman from colorado reserve his time? mr. perlmutter: yes. the speaker pro tempore: and the gentleman from texas is recognized for the remainder of his time. mr. sessions: thank you, madam speaker. and i appreciate the gentleman advising me as such. i'd like to yield two minutes from rock ledge, florida, mr. posey. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized for two minutes. on which further proceedings were postponed thank you, madam speaker.

-- the gentleman from florida is recognized for two minutes. mr. posey: i think i heard everyone say that they blame everything except hurricane katrina and the tsunami on president bush. i know that everyone knows this meltdown was created a couple administrations ago when they came up with the community redevelopment act. and congress decided to get in and started telling fannie mae and freddie mac how to behave when they said everyone in this country deserved to own a home, doesn't matter if you can't afford it. this is the better world we're looking for. i think most people back home, at least where i'm from, remembers the days when no banker wanted to make a bad loan. if you wanted to borrow money from the bank, you needed to convince them to lend you the money. that changed after the community redevelopment act. and so it's no surprise that we have people buying houses they can't afford and that they can't pay for and that's the tip of the iceberg. yes, we need to make some changes in the way we deal with deriff tiffs and -- derivatives

and some of the downstream spending, but to blame it on one side or the other is laughable. there is more blame to go around on both sides of the chamber and i think it's unfair to the people we represent that we spend so much time blasing blame and not focusing on a solution. -- placing blame and not focusing on a solution. this bill is very well intended but it's not going to solve the problem. if regulation and creating more bureaucracies would have solved the problem we wouldn't be here today. we've gone through that cycle a couple of times. we know what happened to bernard madoff. we know the attorneys at the s.e.c. only file one half a case every other year. that's one case each lawyer files every other year. somebody's not watching out for the citizens of this country. the people that put us here. and our job, i think, is to put those people to work before we hire more bureaucrats and create more bureaucracies that will lead to more of the same. thank you very much. i yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the

gentleman's time has expired. mr. sessions: madam speaker, i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. sessions: while it's important to provide consumer safety in the marketplace, our constituents are more concerned about the economy, the debt and the loss of jobs. when my friends on the other side of the aisle finally focus on this, i think we're going to start making advances for the american people, to reduce our debt, and to get back to where we have a growing economy. week after week we come to the house floor to debate bills that kill and diminish jobs. it's not what i want to spend my time doing. but by golly, the republican party is going to fight the democratic party all the way on these job-killing bills. whether it's cap and trade, health care or government takeover of financial sectors, and we're talking about millions of jobs at a time that are coming up for unemployment, the republican party will stand up for the american people. i would like to encourage our

friends, the democrats, to start listening to the american people, stop the borrowing, stop the taxing, stop the spending policies, including an 85% increase in spending in a two-year cycle, increase that have led to this country to record deficits and record unemployment. unfortunately, due to a tragic event that happened back in my home state, i will be unable to be here tomorrow to vote no on all these bills. i will be attending a funeral tomorrow in dallas, texas, of a dear friend. however, if i had been here i would vote no, no on taxing, no on spending and no on bigger government. so i'll encourage my colleagues right now to do the same. just say no. we've heard that before. just say no to more taxes, more spending and more unemployment in this country.

madam speaker, i yield back my time. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. the gentleman from colorado. mr. perlmutter: thank you, madam speaker. i yield myself such time as i may consume. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman is recognized. mr. perlmutter: just say no, that is the republican mantra, just say no, we like the status quo. we're opposed to any movement to get this country back on track. oppose health care, oppose the recovery act. they oppose everything because they like the way it is. they like it so that their friends on wall street can continue to reap billions of dollars and record profits. this is to look -- their opposition is solely to look after their friends so their friends can continue to make money at the expense of average americans. average americans who lost jobs last year because of the credit crunch on wall street which resulted from the lax

regulation and the gambling-time approach taken by the bush administration and the republican congress before that. -- gambling-type approach taken by the bush administration and the republican congress before that. this has got to be penned on my friends in the republican party and on president bush. really, and last fall, we saw millions of jobs lost. that -- we're not out of the woods but that trend has reversed so that we're losing fewer and fewer jobs each month. but there's no recognition of that because my friends don't want to take any credit for ruining the economy last year to the tune of trillions of dollars to this country, to its taxpayers and millions of jobs to the people who work every year. now, my friends say that this is a job-killing bill. the only thing killed in this

bill are failing financial institutions which would effect the economy just like the domino effect last fall. we protect consumers. we protect investors. we look at hedge funds. we deal with credit rating agencies. we look at the derivatives and try to rein them in so that they have to post and there aren't dramatic losses as a result of that. we look at insurance, executive pay, but most importantly we take a look at institutions that are so big that they in prior administrations couldn't fail but under this bill we either take them apart or put them out of their misery. there are no bailouts as we had under george bush. we are trying to end this recession and you do it by restoring confidence in the financial assistance. and i urge an aye vote. madam speaker, i am pleased -- i would urge passage of this bill.

the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. mr. perlmutter: and i move the previous question. the speaker pro tempore: without objection, the previous question is ordered. the ayes have it. mr. sessions: madam speaker. i ask for the yeas and nays. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from. -- the gentleman from texas. the yeas and nays are requested. and those favoring a vote by the yeas and nays will rise. a sufficient number having arisen, the yeas and nays are ordered. and members will record their votes by electronic device. this will be a 15-minute vote. [captioning made possible by the national captioning institute, inc., in cooperation with the united states house of representatives. any use of the closed-captioned coverage of the house proceedings for political or commercial purposes is expressly prohibited by the u.s. house of representatives.]