Goldman Sachs Should Be Held Accountable for its Actions

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. WELCH. Mr. Speaker, earlier this week, the Justice Department reached a settlement with Goldman Sachs, where Goldman Sachs is paying $5 billion as a result of selling bad mortgages to good people.

I want to ask the question a Vermont banker asked me: Why isn't anybody going to jail?

What they did is put together mortgages that were designed to fail, and then they sold them to police officers, to teachers, to folks who have pension funds, with trust that Goldman Sachs was working for them.

So the banker's question from Vermont--why didn't anyone go to jail?--that is the question.

There is a second question: Why are the taxpayers paying over half of this settlement? It is tax deductible. The $5 billion settlement, $2.4 billion civil penalty Goldman pays, but the rest of it, about $2.6 billion, is deductible.

And why should the taxpayers be on the hook for the misconduct, intentional misconduct, cruel misconduct, unnecessary misconduct?

Taxpayers should not be paying a cent, and the people accountable should be going to jail.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source