[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 17] [House] [Pages 23376-23377] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]DON'T PANIC AMERICA The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Gohmert) is recognized for 5 minutes. Mr. GOHMERT. Madam Speaker, this was a historic day. There was a bill in which we had Members who meant well, who had come to this floor and said, look, I understand we all have these principles, and this violates some of our principles, but we need to set those aside in order to avoid risk here. Well, first of all, that is a faulty premise. I just couldn't think of anything but the Declaration of Independence, when the people who founded this place came forward and said the principles of not having the king, not having the Government run everything are too important. And they signed their name where everybody could see, pledging their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor, saying, ``On these principles we will stand or fall.'' And I think today the House, by its vote, said we're standing on the same principles. But not only that, these are the principles on which this Nation has become the greatest Nation in the world and the most prosperous. We can't abandon those principles. So to have a bill that would come before Congress that basically gave the Secretary of the Treasury incredible powers--he was going to be able to bail out any bank in the world with American taxpayer dollars, the only exception was a central bank of a foreign government, but other banks that weren't central banks of other governments could be bailed out. And then, looking at judicial review, as that's my background, it was extraordinary. Nobody was going to be able to object legally and have a chance of prevailing under the standards that were set forth. So the American people need to hear this message: Don't panic. You saw a Congress bipartisanly come in here and stand on principle and want you to know, don't panic, we are going to address this. We're going to come back, it [[Page 23377]] will take a couple of days, and we'll look at the other solutions. One of them was proposed by the former Chairman of the FDIC and said, look, Paulson wanted $700 billion of American taxpayer money to buy these mortgage-based securities that, because the market is frozen, they have no value. And he is going to put a value on there, and it would be either the value, if you do a discounting based on the cash payments made on that mortgage, how regularly they're made, there's a way to get a formula and put a value on there, or you can base it on a discounted value of the underlying property that is securing that mortgage. And then you have a value. And that's what Secretary Paulson was going to come in and spend to buy these assets with American taxpayer dollars. The FDIC former Chairman said, look, if you will just allow these banks to value these assets, what they're really worth and what Secretary Paulson was willing to come in and pay, then they're not under water, the banks don't fail. Washington Mutual didn't have to fail. And even when it failed, all those people that had money with Washington Mutual, they woke up the next day, they had the same money in the account, it is now under a JP Morgan name. And the same way with Wachovia; all their deposits, as I understand it, they have been purchased, and the people can wake up tomorrow and know they've got all that money, it's just under a different name, in the same amount. Don't panic. When Roosevelt said, ``All we have to fear is fear itself,'' that is so true right now because this Congress is committed to principle in a bipartisan way. And I appreciate my friend, Ms. Kaptur, and her diligence in pursuing this. And we've heard some of the same presentations. And we're going to come back with a better bill; and if we don't, we're going to keep doing it until we get it right. Some of the other proposals were excellent. You know, rather than make American taxpayers buy these things--including in, possibly, foreign countries--why not just say, look, if you will come and buy these assets, you won't have any capital gains on the income you make off of these, that encourages the free market to flow. We have heard--I was not aware--that there may be hundreds of billions of American dollars in foreign banks. And one idea was, if you say we will allow you to repatriate those hundreds of billions of dollars if you will bring them in, no tax, no penalty, and buy these assets to help things along, that brings America money. There are all kinds of fantastic ideas. And we are going to be stronger in America if the fearmongering will go away so Americans can use their own judgment and understand that this was a good thing today. Please don't fear, please don't panic. We're going to come back from this stronger, with our principles intact. ____________________