Senate Proceeding on Sep 29th, 2008 :: 0:33:48 to 0:41:24
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0:27:47 to 0:33:48( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Richard Durbin

0:33:38 to 0:33:48( Edit History Discussion )

Richard Durbin: do that this is an important step forward for the 21st century for service jeer service and that amtrak is part of america's future. i yield the floor. behalf. mr. domenici: mr. president? the presiding

0:33:48 to 0:34:02( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: officer: the senator from new mexico. mr. domenici: i know would don't have a lot of time so i would try to ask for five minutes. is somebody controlling our time here? the presiding officer: without

0:33:48 to 0:41:24( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Pete Domenici

0:34:02 to 0:34:22( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: objection, the senator will be so notified. mr. domenici: thank you. let me rise to first thank the distinguished senator from tennessee, lamar alexander, for his eloquent remarks here this morning. and

0:34:22 to 0:34:38( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: i would say to anyone who wants to try to understand the situation we're in in terms that everybody could -- can sends feel, they ought to read his speech. i also thank him because he used a metaphor

0:34:38 to 0:34:55( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: that i developed with some of my staff to try to explain this, a he's added to it and amplified it where he has taken the idea that we came up with in my office. i asked my staff to sit down about

0:34:55 to 0:35:10( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: me and talk and the only thing we could think of about the clogging of this passageway was a bored that didn't sound like it was a very good word to use. it was "constipation." i said, could we not think

0:35:10 to 0:35:24( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: of some metaphor that's better than that? and after 20 minutes, the idea came forth of a superhighy with four or six lanes loaded with cars, traveling at full speed, 65-70 miles an hour and then

0:35:24 to 0:35:43( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: there there was a crash that took all lanes and stopped all of them and the cars piled up for miles back. and as the good senator from tennessee, the wonderful friend of mine, has just gone on from that

0:35:43 to 0:35:58( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: simple beginning that i just described to aanalogize the entire problem that we have to that accident, where these cars that are all cracked up are the toxic assets that we're buying. they're toxic

0:35:58 to 0:36:12( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: because they're all broken down, not worth anything anymore. and we're going to buy them. that's why we're setting up this rescue fund. when we buy them, eventually get them off of there. the cars

0:36:12 to 0:36:27( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: will be loosened from that long 30 miles that they're blocked by this accident, which is the toxic assets. but it's really the cars stopping movement. and then he went on to explain what all those

0:36:27 to 0:36:40( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: cars were because so many people think that this is wall street. this rescue plan is not wall street. some of the large institutions that hold this paper that is clogging the highway, some of them

0:36:40 to 0:36:59( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: are in new york. but we read today some of them are in europe. but we should understand that it's where the money moves, where the money comes from, and it is a moves out into our country, the inner

0:36:59 to 0:37:11( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: land, that's where the problem is. because these assets, these broken-down -- these cars that end up in a wreck, these toxic assets were purchased by banks and institutions all over the cundz and the world apparently.

0:37:11 to 0:37:28( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: some countries bought a lot of them from what's coming out now, and their banks are having the same kinds of problems thousands of miles away from the united states. and so we are going to be

0:37:28 to 0:37:45( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: called upon as senators to decide whether we want to rescue this american financial system which was the greatest delivery system for money the world has ever seen. the reason we live in such high

0:37:45 to 0:37:58( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: prosperity with so many material things of wealth, so much wealth that is material -- a number of houses -- you might own two of them, from cars to appliances to everything that is there -- it's financing;

0:37:58 to 0:38:13( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: it's the financial system that is so magnificent in america; it permits all that to happen. and it's breaking down. if we're going to rescue it, if we can, or look what we are saying to our people.

0:38:13 to 0:38:27( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: we are unable in the worst kind of crisis as it pertains to the material wealth of our country, with that breaking down in front of our eyes, so that we -- as our senator -- as my friend, the senator

0:38:27 to 0:38:46( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: from tennessee said, the things we will not have, that won't be available. in essence, we will be a country that is in bankruptcy. we don't know where the money will be. you don't know what notes

0:38:46 to 0:39:02( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: and instruments will be valid. you don't know who will deliver money to whom. and you will have a literal fiscal mess, a literal financial money mess. fix it or be charged with letting it break down. vote

0:39:02 to 0:39:12( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: for this and fix it. do the rescue plan or walk out of here as a senator that can claim -- can claim no victory, can claim that they didn't want, they didn't see fit -- the presiding officer: the senator's

0:39:12 to 0:39:25( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: five minutes have expired. mr. domenici: one additional minute. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. domenici: if they didn't see fit to lend their vote to a rescue plan of this type

0:39:25 to 0:39:38( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: and i believe no matter how much guff you're getting from your constituents, no matter how much they are talking to you on the phone and in letters and other ways, that you have to explain it to them right aht then

0:39:38 to 0:39:59( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: you have to vote what's right for the united states. that's why you're here. now, some will say it's easy for you, domenici, you're leaving the senate after 36 years. but i hope that i could tell

0:39:59 to 0:40:14( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: you in my mind i can safe a only been here 12 years and i'm going to stay here. and i would vote this way if ira senator that had to vote and run again. i hope the house passes it soon and i hope

0:40:14 to 0:40:25( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: our majority leader sees fit to call it up soon, sooner rather than later. with each day more damage is being done here and around the world. i hope -- well, i think we're lucky to have two good people

0:40:25 to 0:40:36( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: managing the affairs of the united states. i want to close on that noavment we certainly could have had leaders in treasury and in the federal reserve that were not as good as ours on this subject.

0:40:36 to 0:40:49( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: and that's helpful because most of us who are studying this can go back to our offices and then talk to our families and our constituents and say, we are understanding it and we think we're being dealt

0:40:49 to 0:41:03( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: the right information pands a good plan. with that, i want to once again thank senator lamar alexander, my good friend, for his excellent speech this morning. i say to anybody who wants to understand it,

0:41:03 to 0:41:12( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: read it. understand 0 our problem, read t and i thank him for useing a little by the of my thinking in his speech. once again, thank you, senator. i yield the floor. mr. lieberman: mr. president? the

0:41:12 to 0:41:24( Edit History Discussion )

Pete Domenici: presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. lieberman: mr. president, while the senator from new mexico is on the floor, i want to, number one, thank him for his characteristically lucid

0:41:24 to 0:41:37( Edit History Discussion )

Joseph Lieberman: and honorable "put the national interest first" statement. also to say that i gather this afternoon colleagues will be coming to the floor to pay tribute to some who are not running geng, as senator

0:41:24 to 0:44:22( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Joseph Lieberman