Neil's Spotlight BREAKING NEWS 9/25/08 (3:45 P.M. Eastern): Agreement in principle on financial legislation
September 25, 2008
President Bush last night presented a long overdue assessment of the state of the economy and the urgent need for legislation to respond to the financial crisis. Democrats and Republicans from the House and Senate, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke have already been working together to improve the Bush Administration’s initial proposal to stabilize the financial markets.
Democrats and Republicans share the goal of making the Bush Administration proposal more accountable to taxpayers and have made real progress. This afternoon, Democrats and Republicans reached an agreement in principle on legislation to help stabilize the financial markets.
Working with Secretary Paulson and Congressional Republicans, Chairman Frank has helped ensure the package will:
Help every American homeowner maintain value in their home by enacting more tools to prevent foreclosures;
Include rigorous and independent oversight;
Keep CEOs and Wall Street executives from bailing out with golden parachutes while their companies fail.
Later today, Democrats and Republicans, including Senators McCain and Obama will meet at the White House. Congress looks forward to continuing to work with the Bush Administration on a plan to rescue our economy, and we will continue to work toward a plan that protects taxpayers and gets our economy back on track.
A properly designed legislative package could ultimately allow taxpayers to be paid back for this emergency measure. Additionally, the director of the Congressional Budget Office said yesterday that he expects the cost of the package to be “substantially less” than $700 billion
As Democrats and Republicans work together to strengthen the economy, lawmakers will also continue to conduct vigorous oversight. Congressional committees are holding a series of hearings this week to examine the Bush Administration’s mismanagement of financial market regulation and how it led us to this remarkable failure.
The House will work in a bipartisan way to get our country back on track, but will not let Americans forget the catastrophic choices of the last eight years under Republican leadership-- choices that led to financial meltdown, massive job losses, a disastrous energy policy that prioritizes oil company profits over people, skyrocketing health care costs, a costly war that should never have been waged, and a surplus turned into a deficit that will burden generations to come.
