Helping Families Save Their Homes Act of 2009--Continued

Floor Speech

HELPING FAMILIES SAVE THEIR HOMES ACT OF 2009--Continued -- (Senate - May 05, 2009)

AMENDMENT NO. 1030

The ACTING PRESIDENT pro tempore. Under the previous order, there is now 2 minutes of debate equally divided on amendment No. 1030 offered by the Senator from South Dakota, Mr. Thune.

Who yields the time? The Senator from South Dakota.

Mr. THUNE. Mr. President, very briefly, to summarize, what my amendment does is reduce TARP authority by any amount of principal returned by a financial institution to the Treasury Department. This amendment, as I said before, is necessary because until the December 31, 2009, expiration date, and possibly longer if the Secretary is granted an extension without this legislation, Treasury can continue to use TARP funds, including those repaid, in any manner they see fit.

These are taxpayers' dollars. They should not become a discretionary slush fund. These are dollars that, when they are repaid to the Treasury by the financial institutions, ought to be used to reduce the amount of TARP funding authority that is available.

As of May 1, the new administration has accumulated $580 billion of new debt. That is about $5.5 billion new debt per day. I understand we should not be tying Treasury's hands when we are still in the midst of a financial crisis, but Congress has the responsibility to decide how the tax money is spent, not the administration. If more money is needed in the financial sector, then Treasury needs to present a plan to the Congress and let those of us elected by the taxpayers decide whether additional tax dollars should be placed at risk or spent.

That is what the amendment would do. I urge my colleagues to adopt it.

I ask for the yeas and nays.

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