Senator Hillary Clinton Calls for Bipartisan Action on Economic Crisis

September 29, 2008 -- WASHINGTON, DC – Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton today called for renewed bipartisan action to halt the economic crisis in the wake of the House of Representatives’ failure to pass the compromise plan. Senator Clinton made a brief statement after returning to New York this evening and underscored the danger of inaction in the face of the mounting crisis.

“This is not a time when doing nothing will see us through. We have to take action,” Senator Clinton said. “This is a very tough time for our country, and not only for our economy, our financial credit markets, but indeed for the world.”

Senator Clinton described the bipartisan plan as a flawed but necessary compromise that was a significant improvement over the Bush Administration’s initial proposal. She urged her colleagues in Congress to put their differences aside for the good of the country. Senator Clinton stressed that the stakes are especially high for New York, the nation’s financial capital.

“This really comes home here,” Senator Clinton said. “We have tens of thousands of people who are dependent upon the financial services industry, we have thousands of people who run businesses across our state who can’t get the credit they need to stay in business, and we have thousands and thousands of employees.”

Last week, Senator Clinton outlined principles for action that would offer relief to homeowners, stabilize the markets, and provide broader economic reform. Read more here: http://clinton.senate.gov/issues/housing/subprime.

The text of Senator Clinton’s comments in New York follows.

Senator Clinton: Thanks to [Congressman Anthony Weiner] and [Congresswoman Nita Lowey], and to all of the House Democrats and the approximately one third of the House Republicans who stood up today and put partisanship aside, forgot what got us here for just a moment with a focus on what would get us out of the mess we’re in, and voted not only for Wall Street, but for Main Street.

This is not a situation any of us are happy to be in. This is a very tough time for our country and not only for our economy, our financial credit markets, but indeed for the world. There will be plenty of time to figure out what went wrong and how we’re going to come up with new regulations and oversight and demand more accountability.

But we now have to go back to the drawing boards, work together in a bipartisan way and come up with a solution that will actually make a difference for the problems that we are facing. I hope that we’ll be back in Washington as soon as we can. The only reason we’re not still there is because of the Jewish holidays—which everybody understands—but we will go back. I know the Senate will be back on Wednesday. We’re going to see what we can do to try to pick up those additional votes. We were ready to vote today or at the latest on Wednesday because we have faced up to the very unfortunate consequences that inaction produces.

This is not a time when doing nothing will see us through. We have to take action. It’s not a bill that any one of us particularly likes or that we would have written. It’s a compromise. And it’s a heck of a lot better than what we were sent by the Bush Administration last week. It does give us a lot more in the way of tools to try to get at the real problem, to have the kind of accountability and oversight that was needed, to distribute the money in installments so that we can wait and see how this is working.

We’ve got to get back together and I know that the New York delegation stands ready to work as hard as we can. Because despite what are clearly national and international ramifications, this really comes home here. We have tens of thousands of people who are dependent upon the financial services industry, we have thousands of people who run businesses across our state who can’t get the credit they need to stay in business, and we have thousands and thousands of employees. We’ll see the unemployment rate, I predict this week going up dramatically. I’ve talked to a lot of employers here in New York in the last week. They’re laying off people, they don’t see any end in sight unless we get a grip on this and that’s what we’re asking that everybody begin to do again in a bipartisan manner.

Source: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton

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