[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 16] [House] [Page 22683] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]LETTING THE FOX GUARD THE HEN HOUSE (Mr. PERLMUTTER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.) Mr. PERLMUTTER. Mr. Speaker, the Bush administration with its neocon philosophy either cut back, opposed, ignored or choked off restraints on the markets, especially those of Wall Street, while borrowing billions of dollars from China and Saudi Arabia to finance tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans and while prosecuting the war in Iraq. The borrow-and-spend approach and the party atmosphere cannot go on forever, and the bailouts, takeovers and bankruptcies of the recent weeks demonstrate that the party is over. Bush's Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, is asking Congress for hundreds of billions of dollars to compensate for market excesses and wants the money within a week or two to restore confidence to the financial markets. I will listen to Mr. Paulson and his plea on behalf of the Bush administration about this immediate infusion of cash and the purchase of billions and billions of dollars in bad loans to take the burden of this bad debt out of the markets, but I must say I have my doubts about the foxes guarding the hen house or giving the Bush administration any more authority over anything. Thank goodness we did not privatize Social Security. ____________________