Senate Proceeding on May 6th, 2010 :: 7:44:20 to 7:55:50
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7:44:16 to 7:44:38( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: mr. president, i yielthe floor. mr. demint: mr. president? the presiding officer: the senator from south carolina. mr. demint: thank you, mr. president. i want to join senator supporting the amendment of senator sanders to audit the federal reserve. let me begin with a perspective of what happened with the stock

7:44:20 to 7:55:50( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Jim DeMint

7:44:39 to 7:45:00( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: market today. clearly someone got it wrong, created a domino effect of one thing falling after another, and before we know it, the stock market was dow a thousand dollars -- or a thousand points. fortunately it climbed back up before it closed today. but it just reminds us of how

7:45:01 to 7:45:21( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: volatile, how vulnerable we are in a world where so many systems are involved with our financial system. it's good that congress is looking at financial reform. i onl regret that we're not dealing with the real causes of our financial crisis. wall streets clearly jittery.

7:45:22 to 7:45:43( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: you could see that from the stock market today. everyone, i think, is waiting for the dominoes to fall. we see what's happening in greece. one country that continued to spend more than it was bringing in until it went bankrupt. and now, unfortunately, the american people are on the hook for yet another bailout.

7:45:44 to 7:46:04( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: not even a bailout in this country. but billions of american tack dollars are headed for degrees right now. as other european countries head towards bankruptcy, last year in this congress, we created another credit line for the international monetary fund to be drawn down. the real irony here is we're

7:46:05 to 7:46:26( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: borrowing the money countries like china in order to bail out other countries in the world at a time when the united states is carrying $13 trillion of debt today in -- and projections of tens of trillions more dollars in the future. it's clearly unsustainable.

7:46:27 to 7:46:47( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: the stock market and investors have a reason to be jittery, and americans have a reason toe angry. we saw what the government organizations like fannie mae did and how it cost americans trillions of dollars. people who had been saving and investing all their lives found out almost overnight that the

7:46:48 to 7:47:08( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: system they counted on and that we were supposed to oversee was not what they thought it was. and suddenly, wealth was gone. but if fannie mae could do that much damage to our country, that's small in comparison with what could happen if the federal

7:47:09 to 7:47:30( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: reserve does it wrong. the constitution gives congress the responsibility for our monetary poly. congress years ago delegated that to an independent agency call the federal reserve, but we're still responsible for monetary policy, and if something is done wrong with that policy, all that we have

7:47:31 to 7:47:52( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: worked for in this country, everyone's savings and investments and everyone's wealth, not only in this country but because we're the reserve currency for the world, the whole economic system of the world is resting on top of what the federal reserve does. and the fact is while it's our

7:47:53 to 7:48:13( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: responsibility to oversee monetary policy, we don't know what the federal reserve is doing. keep in mind we were sure only months before fannie mae and freddie mac collapsed -- and by the way, we bailed them out, freddie mac, for another $10 billion this week. only months before they

7:48:14 to 7:48:34( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: collapsed, we were told by chairman bernanke at the federal reserve and many other economic experts that there was no problem, but there was a problem. the real problem was we didn't know it. that was a company created by this congress, and it was our responsibility to oversee it.

7:48:35 to 7:48:56( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: we did not carry out our responsibility. we need an independent federal resek?e. we do not need political manipulation and second-guessing of our monetary policy, but we don't need a secret federal reserve. we have to know what they are doing if we're going to be responsible for what they are doing, and it's not going to be

7:48:57 to 7:49:17( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: enough if they do something wrong that we point our finger at them and say it was their fault, because it is our responsibility. for years, the federal reserve has been avoiding any kind of audit, any kind of acf transparency. every time we ask for some kind of disclosure, they are saying

7:49:18 to 7:49:43( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: we're violating their independence. we're not violating their independence with this bill proposed by senator sanders. all we're doing is uncloaking the secrecy that executives -- that exists within the federal reserve. it's important to know what we do know. we know the federal reserve has

7:49:44 to 7:50:04( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: bailed out bear stearns, a.i.g., taxpayers are stuck holding failed bets on everything from toxic subprime mortgages to strip mls and hotels. you know, thanks to the bailouts, taxpayers now own stakes in bankrupt hilton hotels in malaysia, russia and singapore.

7:50:05 to 7:50:25( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: i'm not sure that's what the congress had in mind when they started the federal reserve. the federal reserve owned parts of civic opera buildings in chicago at crossroads mall in oklahoma city. i thought it was bad when the fed was printing money to keep up the government shopping spree, but i never expected they would buy theall to go

7:50:26 to 7:50:47( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: shopping in. they say it's over when the fat lady sings. well, now the fed has an opera house ready for her to sing in. americans deserve to know if the federal reserve is being honest with the congress and with the american people. we know what they say behind closed doors doesn't square with

7:50:48 to 7:51:08( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: what they say publicly. recently, released transcripts show that in 2004, members of the federal reserve publicly down played specific concerns they discussed internally about the coming housing crisis. they knew we had a problem. at that time, chairman alan

7:51:09 to 7:51:30( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: greenspan said if they were to encourage the public to talk about it, and i quote -- "it's possible to lose control of a process that only we fully understand. "end quote. meanwhile, they were telling the congress and the public everything was fine.

7:51:31 to 7:51:51( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: and by doing that, they cost millions of americans a lifetime of savings that they are still struggling. millions of people out of work because of mismanagement by the federal reserve, yet they seem to think that they reqre no supervision, no accountability, no transparency. we need to end that with this amendment today.

7:51:52 to 7:52:12( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: within 30 days of the president signing this legislation, this amendment that has been proposed, the federal reserve will have to tell us who got all this bailout money, how much they got and the reasoning for getting it and what terms of repayment there are.

7:52:13 to 7:52:33( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: it's a pretty simple request. tr finance reform must include a full audit of the federal reserve, and a breakup and a winddown of freddie mac and fannie mae. but the people who run the government aren't willing to hold the government institutions responsible, and those who really understand what happened

7:52:34 to 7:52:55( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: in this financial crisis know that the easy money policy of the federal reserve, fannie mae and freddie mac, buying subprime mortgages and securitizing them, selling them all over the world were a large part of the meltdown of our financial system. yet this financial reform bill that we're talking about does

7:52:56 to 7:53:16( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: not even address the real causes of our financial meltdown. but one thing we can do if we pass this amendment is make sure there is more transparency, more account ablght at the federal reserve. as i have already mentioned just yesterday, freddie mac posted an $8 billion loss. it's now fully owned by the

7:53:17 to 7:53:37( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: federal government. so the federal government is clearly mismanaging freddie mac. and they asked for another another $10 billion bailout from the taxpayers. but this time that doesn't have to go through congress. president obama has taken the caps off anything that can go to these bankrupt companies, so

7:53:38 to 7:53:58( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: just billions of dollars are going to flow from taxpayers directly to these government-owned entities. freddie mac and fannie mae have together lost at least least $126.9 billion so far. it's pretty amazing in a time when this country is just

7:53:59 to 7:54:20( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: overcome with debt. there is no end in sight and there is no cap on how much taxpayers could bail them out, yet they are not even mentioned in this financial reform bill. we have heard about greed on wall street, but we haven't even addressed the greed within the government and within the government agencies. the democrat house financial

7:54:21 to 7:54:42( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: services chairman barney frank doesn't think that these government-run institutions are good candidates for reform. he wrote a memo to the white house yesterday saying they were being managed responsibly and aren't doing any further economic damage. fortunately, senator mccain has an amendment to address this, and i hope it passes, but

7:54:43 to 7:55:04( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: if there is one place that the blame can be placed for this financial meltdn, it comes back to fannie mae and freddie mac. wall street certainly deserves a lot of the blame for the financial crisis because they took advantage of a lot of the mismanagement in government to their own benefit.

7:55:05 to 7:55:25( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: but the federal reserve, freddie mac and fannie mae also deserve a lot of the blame, and they should be addressed as well. the sanders amendment at least begins the process in letting us know what the federal reserve is doing. the fed amendment has more than 300 cosponsors in the house and 32 in the senate.

7:55:26 to 7:55:47( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: it's supported by a broad spectrum of political groups from freedom works all the way to very liberal groups. within here, if america wants bipartisan activity, it could not be more bipartisanhan bernie sanders and jim demint. so i encourage my colleagues to support this bill.

7:55:48 to 7:55:51( Edit History Discussion )

Jim DeMint: let's reform not only the financial system but our own