Unanimous Consent Request -- H. R. 6532

Floor Speech

UNANIMOUS-CONSENT REQUEST--H.R. 6532 -- (Senate - September 10, 2008)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I would request I be notified when I have used 12 minutes.

Mr. President, I wish to join my colleague from New Hampshire in raising some alarm--not intemperate, not hysterical alarm, but alarm nonetheless--about the recent reports that the Federal deficit has now risen in excess of $400 billion. Of course, what that means is that the Federal Government continues to spend money it does not have, and I think the American people are rightfully concerned that we are on a course of significant fiscal irresponsibility for which a tremendous price is going to be paid by our children and grandchildren.

The Senator from New Hampshire mentioned the fact that here we are in September, and this Congress, under the Democratic control conferred upon them in the last election, has yet to pass a single appropriations bill. I know that in the blame game--which in Washington, DC, is a world-class sport--our colleagues on the other side of the aisle like to point to the President of the United States as the person responsible for the high budget deficit. But the fact is that the President can't appropriate a penny of money. The President does not have that authority under the Constitution of the United States. Only Congress can appropriate money, and Congress is the one that should bear the responsibility for this tremendous state of fiscal neglect and irresponsibility that brings us here today.

We also know that in this election season, Senator Obama, our colleague from Illinois, has already proposed $350 billion in new Federal spending. The $400 billion deficit apparently is not enough to satisfy Senator Obama. He wants to spend $350 billion more in new spending. And these are not on existing spending programs, this is new spending. Over 5 years, his proposals would cost almost $1.7 trillion. Well, I have to tell you that in the 5 weeks I was back in Texas traveling the State and listening to my constituents, the last thing that was on their to-do list for us here in Congress was to come up with new ways to spend their money. What they wanted was for Congress to accept the responsibility that goes along with the privilege of holding the offices we hold and to actually do something about the problems that confront our Nation when it comes to fiscal irresponsibility.

It is a troubling sign that our deficit has ballooned from $161 billion to more than $400 billion. Yet what do we find out yesterday or the day before but that the Federal Government is now going to have to take over, in essence, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. This move could potentially cost taxpayers as much as $200 billion more on top of the $400 billion deficit.

Since the 2006 election, Democrats have been in control. And this year alone, spending has increased by 8.3 percent. Now, I don't know any business, I don't know any family who increased their spending 8.3 percent from last year to this year. Only the Federal Government--which, of course, prints money, which is then added to the deficit and the bill passed on to our children and grandchildren--only the Federal Government could get away with that.

Regarding the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac debacle, no one actually knows how much this bailout is going to cost the American taxpayer. I have very serious concerns whether the poor investment decisions of the CEOs and the shareholders should be guaranteed by the paychecks of taxpayers.

As a matter of fact, I think they should not be. While they were granted a backstop against catastrophic losses, certainly the taxpayers were not there to share in the profit during the heyday of those Government-sponsored enterprises. And the most disturbing to me is that the collapse of Fannie and Freddie was, in all likelihood, contributed to by corrupt actions of its corporate officers.

As a matter of fact, in May of 2006, a report by Fannie Mae's oversight authority, the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, noted that:

By deliberately and intentionally manipulating accounting to hit earnings targets, senior management maximized bonuses and the executive compensation they received at the expense of shareholders.

Now, there was an investigation into these corrupt practices. But, amazingly enough, there were no criminal charges pursued, only civil fines against the top three corporate officers. So while three corporate officers overstated Fannie Mae's earnings by approximately $10.6 billion, they have been given a slap on the wrist and no real sense of accountability, no accountability in any sense of the word.

We know they contributed to what ultimately happened by the Treasury Secretary using the power Congress conferred in him to essentially take over and bail out these two enterprises.

I have written a letter to the Attorney General of the United States asking him to conduct a criminal investigation into the activities of the corporate officers and anyone else who may have contributed to the overstatement of assets on the books of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and to make sure a thorough criminal investigation is undertaken and that those responsible for violating any of the criminal laws of the United States be held accountable.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that this letter to the Attorney General be printed in the Record after my remarks.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. NELSON of Nebraska.) Without objection, it is so ordered.

(See exhibit 1.)

Mr. CORNYN. What the American people want in Washington is accountability. And what they see is dysfunction and no accountability. If there is one thing I heard from my constituents in Texas as I was there during the month of August is that no one is happy with what is happening in Washington, in Congress in particular, not Democrats, not Republicans, and certainly not me.

I think to see, for example, a $400-billion-plus deficit, a bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that is going to cost probably somewhere on the order of $200 billion, and then to hear Speaker Pelosi in the other body talk about a second stimulus bill which is going to, of course, increase Government spending, spending money we do not have and pass that debt along to our children and grandchildren, I wonder whether Congress has lost leave of its senses entirely, because there seems to be absolutely no recognition of our fiscal responsibility here. I point to the fact that there has actually been an effort to try to figure out how to eliminate wasteful spending projects. The Office of Management and Budget has done a review of about 1,000 Government programs and actually concluded that about 22 percent of them were either ineffective or else they could not tell whether they were effective.

In other words, out of 1,000 Government programs chosen by the Office of Management and Budget, 22 percent were either found ineffective or else it was impossible to say whether they were effective. I do not know which is worse, whether they are ineffective or whether you do not have the information to tell one way or the other.

What Congress needs to do as it sets about spending more money is not grow the size of Government and raise taxes or else pass the bills down to our children and grandchildren, Congress needs to start cutting ineffective programs. That is why I have introduced a bill that would create a sunset commission like the sunset commission in many States, including mine, which would actually periodically review Federal Government agencies and programs and cut wasteful or ineffective programs.

That is the kind of commonsense, practical, bipartisan solution the American people are crying out for, but apparently in vain, because Congress persists down this road of fiscal irresponsibility, and there is no apparent end in sight.

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