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I'm not sure if there's anything more endearing than a 20 lb cat softly launching herself at your legs.

Current Events

It's easy to become cynical about politics and policy in the United States. Occasionally, I'm encouraged by something that I read or hear about. Until his support of the proposed bailout plan, Barack Obama's campaign represented to me a return to rational representation in Washington.
The amendments to the proposal have been the equivalent of sweetening sewage - the original product was not a good basis for a solution. The best thing to do is just start over with a plan that will work for the overall good.

Something positive has come out of the Senate's vote last night. My senator, Bill Nelson (D) of Florida, was one of the 25 who voted against the proposal. Here's what he had to say:

U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson's speech on the bailout vote

October 2, 2008

Mr. NELSON of Florida. Madam President, the things that have been added to this bill such as the FDIC provisions as well as the energy tax extenders and other tax extenders that I have already voted in favor of, certainly I support them, but the underlying bill rewards the banks and leaves the little person with the short end of the stick, and that is not right. This plan rewards the investment banks that ran us into the ground and it hardly does anything to help the homeowners who are facing foreclosure.

If, under this bill, the financial institutions participate in the Treasury's program, they should accept reasonable limits on executive compensation, but under the bill they don't. The limits on executive compensation are left to the Treasury Secretary's discretion. Some CEOs who caused this crisis in the first place will benefit from this bailout and will also walk away with golden parachutes. That is not right. This creates a moral hazard the U.S. Government will undertake.

This bill sends a message to Wall Street that if they play fast and loose in the name of short-term profits, the Government will actually make up for their losses. And the bill does very little to help individual homeowners. Until we stabilize the housing market, which is the underlying ability to restructure the economy from this crisis--until we stabilize the housing market, and until we stem the record number of foreclosures, our market simply is not going to improve. While this bill authorizes the Treasury to develop and carry out a plan, it does not require financial institutions participating in the program to modify or refinance any loan. It only requires the Treasury to encourage loan modifications. Voluntary refinancing efforts will not solve our foreclosure crisis. We should mandate these efforts. We should start by requiring Fannie and Freddie to refinance the mortgages they hold on their books.

Furthermore, I think this bill should do more to investigate the business practices of major credit rating agencies. They fostered the enormous growth of the mortgage-backed securities. They gave securities, mainly consisting of subprime mortgages, the gold standard or the triple A rating. That rating gave investors the confidence that they were making safe investments. Without that triple A rating, insurance companies and pension funds and other investors would not have bought those products.

So I am calling for an investigation to probe the business practices of those agencies. Investors relied on and trusted those credit ratings, and the public deserves to know how these rating agencies concluded that such risky investments could receive such high credit ratings.

I could say a lot about this, but let me just say that the bottom line is, ultimately, this bill forces taxpayers to bail out investment banks that caused the crisis in the first place, and it does nothing to address the real problem, which is home foreclosures and a resuscitation of the housing market. Until we stop the record level of foreclosures, this crisis is going to continue to worsen, whether we pass this bill or not.

For these reasons, I oppose this bill. I think Congress can do better, and I think Congress can come up with a better, more targeted solution to this complex crisis.

It saddens me that I would oppose so many of my colleagues who have offered very cogent reasons. It is true we have to do something, but this particular legislation is not the right solution.

I yield the floor.

Good job, Bill. It's good to know that you really are reasonable and trying to find real solutions to this mess we're in. I'm really pleased to know that we have real representation.