Home > 2008 Speeches

Mr. Speaker:

There is something every American and should remember as we deal with the Administration’s economic crisis. For almost eight years, the President and Republican Party have been staging events, issuing press releases and telling everybody that we had to privatize Social Security and give it to Wall Street to invest.

For almost eight years, the President and Republican Party have been telling the American people that Wall Street would wave its magic wand and inflate Social Security to Social Nirvana. 

They wanted satchels full of money dropped off by that statue of the bull on Wall Street. And they promised that Wall Street would use an incantation – something like Hocus-Pocus –and they could work their magic --- for a fee of course.

Democrats and the American people managed to hold off their grand and greedy plan to grab Social Security.  But the Wall Street Wonders worked their so-called magic in a lot of other places and their outcome is this:  Now you see it, now you don’t.

And that describes the Administration’s bailout plan: Give us $700 billion and like magic the problems will go away. Hocus-Pocus.  It is time for the Administration to declare the magic wand option is off the table.   

It is time to recognize government has a role and responsibility in society and that government protects the American people from being mauled by a bull. 

Thank you.