FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, Friday, October 3, 2008
CONTACT: Brian Cook, (202) 225-3202

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, the House of Representatives voted, 263-171, to concur with Senate amendments to H.R. 1424, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. Rep. Pete Stark (CA-13) opposed the bailout legislation today, as he did on Monday. Below is the text of Rep. Stark’s floor remarks in opposition to the bill:

“I will be voting no on this bill. I recently read in the press that eight out of ten of my colleagues know nothing about economics or banking. This bill shows that account is quite right.

“This bill does nothing but bail out Wall Street and large corporate America. It spends $800 billion that taxpayers will end up having to pay for and it does nothing for middle-income Americans.

“Is there a crisis in this country? Yes there is. But this is not the solution for those people who have been working and trying to pay their bills.

“There is not a crisis facing your average community bank which has no problem in liquidity. There is not a crisis for your credit cards – endangering their ability to work.

“This rushed bailout package is nothing more than President Bush’s Treasury Secretary Paulson’s way to scare us as Colin Powell tried to scare us some years ago by saying if we didn’t vote for an ill-conceived war, we’d see terrorists on the street.

“You’re getting the same kind of misinformation now -- the same kind of rush to judgment -- to tell you that a crisis will occur. It won’t. Vote no and let’s come back and help work on a bill that will help all Americans.”