U.S. Sen. Richard Burr said he panicked when he first learned of the banking crisis.

The Winston-Salem Republican told the Henderson County Chamber of Commerce that he called his wife, Brooke, and told her to withdraw money from the bank after talking with former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson.

The remarks, first reported by the Hendersonville Times-News, have since been picked up by The Hill, a Washington-based newspaper, and various political blogs:

"On Friday night, I called my wife and I said, 'Brooke, I am not coming home this weekend. I will call you on Monday. Tonight, I want you to go to the ATM machine, and I want you to draw out everything it will let you take. And I want you to tomorrow, and I want you to go Sunday.' I was convinced on Friday night that if you put a plastic card in an ATM machine the last thing you were going to get was cash."

Burr also said that he does not think the current economic problems — which he termed a depression — would have a U-shaped or V-shaped recovery, as past recessions have had.

"Those are the only things they talk about," he said. "Either it’s a lack of imagination or some belief that you can make everything fit into those two. Let me suggest to you today, I think we are in a Nike swoosh."

Republican U.S. Sen. Richard Burr told Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson today that the government took a wrong turn in deciding that hundreds of billions in federal bailout money won't be used to buy troubled bank assets.

Burr, along with two other Republican senators, wrote in response to Paulson's announcement yesterday that the agency will look to help non-bank entities that offer credit card loans, student loans and car loans, Barb Barrett reports.

"We are concerned that the program has been fundamentally changed from its original intent," the senators wrote about the bailout, known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

The group also worried that more changes could hurt oversight designed to protect taxpayers.

"Congress never intended for the TARP to be a blank check that could be spent with unlimited discretion," the senators wrote.

The letter was signed by Burr, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and David Vitter of Louisiana.

U.S. Sen. Richard Burr doesn’t think the Bush administration is making the right call on the financial bailout.

Burr, a Winston-Salem Republican, supported the bailout when Congress passed it this fall. But today he questioned Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s decision to reverse earlier plans on the $700 billion financial bailout, reports Barb Barrett.

Paulson announced that the federal government will not focus on buying troubled bank assets, but rather will turn to other financial entities that lend money.

“The only reason I supported the federal government in the rescue business was the fact that you have no economy if you don’t have a financial system,” Burr said. “Now, I’m questioning the secretary’s most recent decisions to get outside the soundness of the financial structure and to begin to invest in winners and losers.”

Paulson talked Wednesday of the importance of backing the fianncial programs that support credit cards, student loans and car loans.

“Which are nice buzzwords,” Burr said, “but (the federal finance leaders) have washed their hands, it seems to me, to somewhat right the mortgage market. And the mortgage market is still somewhat the problem.”

Burr continued: “There’s not transparency in what (Paulson) is doing. This is not what I think Congress signed off on, and if he feels he’s got the flexibility we need to look at removing some of the flexibility.”

Richard Moore says the Federal Reserve is welcome to borrow from North Carolina.

In an appearance on CNBC, the Democratic state treasurer said Wednesday that the state's public pension fund would be willing to lend money — at the right price — to try to boost liquidity in the banking industry.

"I'd like to think that Hank Paulson has been as creative as possible. I've got a solution for you this morning, Becky," Moore told the channel's Becky Quick.

If the Congress is not willing to loan this money, if the Fed will give me a guaranteed rate of return — 7, 8 percent — I'll loan them the money, and I think there are a lot of pension plans across the country that would loan money to the federal government at that kind of rate. And I'll give him the fire power he needs to settle this out.

Moore described the heart of the problem as banks being unwilling to loan to each other.

"We really do have a real problem if banks can't trust each other, particularly with short-term trading, so we do need a solution to this and we need it quickly," he said. "But boy, that's easier said than done in our society, isn't it?"

Moore spokeswoman Sara Lang told Dome Thursday that the idea of lending to the Federal Reserve is still only a hypothetical.