Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that Congress must refuse to provide any…

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[Congressional Bills 119th Congress] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office] [H. Res. 1642 Introduced in House (IH)] <DOC> 119th CONGRESS 2d Session H. RES. 1642 Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that Congress must refuse to provide any additional funds or exceptional regulatory support to companies or financial institutions facing insolvency or financial collapse due to exposures to acute stress within the artificial intelligence market and must provide support to all harmed Americans instead. _______________________________________________________________________ IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES October 29, 2026 Mr. Casar (for himself, Ms. Waters, Ms. Schakowsky, Mr. Garcia of Illinois, Ms. Tlaib, Mrs. Ramirez, Mr. Carson, Mr. Davis of Illinois, Mr. Deluzio, Mr. Sherman, Mrs. Foushee, Ms. Jayapal, and Ms. Mejia) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Financial Services, and in addition to the Committees on the Judiciary, and Education and Workforce, for a period to be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned _______________________________________________________________________ RESOLUTION Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that Congress must refuse to provide any additional funds or exceptional regulatory support to companies or financial institutions facing insolvency or financial collapse due to exposures to acute stress within the artificial intelligence market and must provide support to all harmed Americans instead. Whereas excessive, profit-driven financial risk-taking, fueled by Wall Street's speculative fervor and unleashed by years of zealous deregulation, led to the 2008 global financial crisis; Whereas the economic harm of a multi-trillion-dollar housing bubble caused by predatory lending, reckless financialization and securitization, and off-balance-sheet lending led to a massive surge in layoffs, with the unemployment rate hitting almost 10 percent at the trough of the Great Recession in 2009; Whereas the weak labor market persisted for nearly a decade, leading to almost no real wage growth for most workers, the erasure of tens of trillions of dollars in United States total wealth, with some estimates placing the cost as high as $30,200,000,000,000, or $149,000 of reduced wealth per working-age adult, and reduced the economic well-being of families and communities across the Nation; Whereas State and local government employment took more than 10 years to recover to its pre-Great Recession levels, resulting in a decade of fewer public sector jobs and degraded essential public services; Whereas predatory subprime mortgages led to the collapse of the housing market in the years 2007 through 2010, resulting in over 10,000,000 homeowners losing their houses due to foreclosure; Whereas this crisis followed a tech bubble that began to burst in 2000, ending strong real wage growth during the late 1990s and spurring job losses that were not recovered until January 2005, representing the longest period without net job growth at the time since the Great Depression; Whereas, today, artificial intelligence-related firms hold trillions of dollars in debt, much of which is raised in opaque and unregulated private credit markets; Whereas the financing terms of many artificial intelligence-related data centers as well as the costs and revenues of major artificial intelligence firms are not publicly available and artificial intelligence-related corporate borrowing to fund data center investments are multiples higher than projected revenues; Whereas, since October 2022, artificial intelligence-related stocks were responsible for as much as 75 percent of the returns of the Standard and Poor's 500, which has been derived from companies linked to generative artificial intelligence, and the price-to-earnings ratio of the stock market is currently almost as high as it was at the peak of the 1990s tech bubble; Whereas stock prices of artificial intelligence-related companies have inflated even more than the tech giants of the 1990s, with one artificial intelligence firm alone carrying a market capitalization equal to roughly 16 percent of the gross domestic product, compared to the 1990s, when the peak for the leading tech firm's market capitalization was less than 6 percent of the gross domestic product; Whereas a collapse of an artificial intelligence bubble could have serious consequences for the economy, similar if not more significant than the end of the 1990s tech bubble or the 2008 global financial crisis; Whereas an artificial intelligence bubble pulls an increasing volume of resources from other sectors of the economy, diverting investment from other productive uses; Whereas an economy disproportionately dependent on 10 or fewer giant artificial intelligence-related firms posting record profits and collectively valued at more than $27,000,000,000,000, more than 80 percent of the gross domestic product, creates economic fragility while discouraging competition and efficiency; Whereas investment in factory construction in mid-2026 was already down by more than 25 percent from its peak in 2024; Whereas Federal regulators have avoided applying robust scrutiny and oversight regarding enormously complicated debt and equity schemes used by artificial intelligence firms or the circular financing mechanisms involved in the artificial intelligence-related data-center build-out; Whereas the White House's artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency czar was personally invested in at least 449 companies with ties to artificial intelligence while pushing to eliminate government obstacles facing artificial intelligence companies, reflecting the administration's broad deregulatory focus and conflicts of interest related to artificial intelligence; Whereas, in 2008, Congress appropriated hundreds of billions of dollars in public funds through the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 to benefit the financial institutions that had propelled the housing bubble and which subsequently found themselves facing bankruptcy, and the Federal Government marshalled trillions of dollars in additional support through other facilities, including the Department of the Treasury's guarantee of money market mutual funds through the Exchange Stabilization Fund, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation's Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program for the debt of banks and bank holding companies, the placement of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship backed by the Department of the Treasury capital commitments, and the Federal Reserve's purchase of more than $1,000,000,000,000 in mortgage-backed securities; Whereas the Federal Reserve opened special lending facilities for large financial institutions that engaged in reckless behavior that contributed to the 2008 global financial crisis, and subsequently found themselves facing insolvency or illiquidity, which were able to survive unlike other companies that were allowed to fail; Whereas almost none of the individuals involved in issuing and circulating fraudulent securities faced any legal consequences for their actions; Whereas many of the most culpable individuals were effectively allowed to pocket their profits from promoting the housing bubble while too-big-to-fail banks were protected, maintaining a reckless financial system and contributing to economic inequality; Whereas Federal action to prop up the financial and other economic sectors with trillions of dollars in liquidity without imposing serious accountability for lawbreaking or sweeping reforms to corporate governance and reckless business practices creates incentives for excessive risk-taking; Whereas government efforts during the Great Recession to protect homeowners and support ordinary workers were wholly insufficient, leading to prolonged high unemployment that peaked at almost 10 percent and an economy that did not return to its prerecession baseline for another 8 years; and Whereas artificial intelligence data center energy demand continues to grow, leading to consumers paying higher electricity bills and subsidizing the rising costs of the artificial intelligence build-out: Now, therefore, be it Resolved, That the House of Representatives-- (1) opposes-- (A) any measure to rescue insolvent artificial intelligence-related firms, or to shield the senior executives of such firms from accountability for reckless conduct that contributed to the failure of such firms; (B) any Federal agency, including the Federal Reserve, the Department of the Treasury, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, providing special assistance, whether through emergency lending under section 13(3) of the Federal Reserve Act, the Exchange Stabilization Fund, direct capital infusions, a debt guarantee program, or otherwise, to rescue insolvent artificial intelligence-related firms or financial firms with exposure to the artificial intelligence sector for the purpose of supporting the deployment or sustainment of their businesses operations or preventing their orderly resolutions; and (C) any funds otherwise marshalled by the Federal Government to bail out insolvent artificial intelligence-related firms for the purpose of preventing their orderly resolution or bankruptcy; (2) affirms that-- (A) insolvent artificial intelligence-related firms should wind down or reorganize through ordinary bankruptcy processes and that insolvent financial firms should be resolved through orderly resolution processes, as laid out in statute; (B) artificial intelligence bubble-induced bankruptcy and resolution processes should be administered in a manner that promotes competition, supports workers and consumers, prioritizes pension and retirement fund holders, and does not further the concentration of market power in the technology or financial sectors; and (C) senior executives found to have taken excessive risks, violated fiduciary duties, or acted unlawfully, should be held fully accountable under civil and criminal law and should be required to pay penalties in addition to returning their ill-gotten gains together with everything those gains purchased, including mansions and vacation homes, private aircraft, yachts, luxury vehicles, survival bunkers, art and collectibles, memberships in exclusive clubs, board seats, honorary titles, and advisory posts, carried interest and unvested equity awards, golden parachutes and deferred compensation, trusts and foundations used to shelter wealth from creditors and taxation, and every other privilege or status that was financed using the proceeds of their risk taking; (3) supports aggressive Federal action to directly protect workers and consumers from bearing the costs of economic dislocations in the wake of acute financial stress induced by artificial intelligence-related failures, including through-- (A) Federal fiscal stimulus to directly create jobs at a level commensurate with a shortfall in consumer demand triggered by a collapsing artificial intelligence bubble, and preserve vital jobs in and services provided by State and local governments; (B) robust economic assistance for workers and their families who face job losses in the wake of an artificial intelligence bubble collapse, such as unemployment insurance, nutrition support, rental and housing assistance; (C) strong protections for pension and retirement fund holders who face devastating losses to their savings in the event of an artificial intelligence bubble collapse; (D) the immediate enactment of laws triggering automatic economic stabilizers that support workers and consumers irrespective of specific congressional action to respond to future economic recessions; and (E) targeted Federal assistance to communities and households that face disproportionate economic harm from artificial intelligence-related financial failures, including historically underserved communities, low-income households, current and near retirees, and communities with limited access to financial services, credit, and economic opportunity; and (4) commits to engaging on a far-reaching reform agenda to prevent future speculative bubbles, to restore transparency and accountability to the markets and institutions that finance such bubbles, and to ensure that the costs of any such bubble are borne by those who inflate and profit from it rather than by workers, consumers, and taxpayers. <all>