Look Into Causes Of Economic Morass

Floor Speech

Mr. COHEN. Mr. Speaker, as Congresswoman Watson was saying, we will vote this week on the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act. That act will do several things, one of which will set up a commission to look into the causes of the economic morass that we are presently experiencing.

Congress did that in the Great Depression, and it led to the reforms that kept this country safe for a long time. Then we fell to the arguments that were made, starting with the Reagan administration, about the free market and the free market which took us where we are today.

The free market, unfettered, has caused this problem. But a study needs to be taken by the Congress, and that's what that bill would do.

It would also expand the abilities of several State governments and nonprofits to look into fraud and extend Federal fraud statutes to the TARP and to the Recovery and Reinvestment Act. People who fraudulently steal from the government or steal these funds are engaging in as un-American an activity as anybody could do short of espionage.

I endorse the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act and hope that we could have a commission to get to the bottom of what's happened. This past week, Mr. Speaker, I watched ``Wall Street,'' the movie. It's shameful and it's today's world.

Source