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American Recovery And Reinvestment Act Of 2009 - Continued

Floor Speech

By: Ron Wyden
By: Ron Wyden
Date: Feb. 6, 2009
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Finance and Banking Government Budget and Spending Housing and Property

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Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, Senators of both parties have worked hard to limit the costs of the economic recovery legislation. This bipartisan amendment that I offer with Senator Snowe and Senator Lincoln will, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation, reduce the cost of this bill by $3.2 billion.

This amendment provides a way to quickly return to taxpayers a substantial portion of the money that was recently paid out in excessive bonuses to companies under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. Our people were horrified to learn that Citigroup and others that had received extensive Federal support had paid out billions of dollars in excessive bonuses. This amendment makes it clear that it is not enough to say the excessive bonuses are wrong; it requires that companies pay those bonuses back to our taxpayers. The amendment gives the companies a choice: Pay back the cash portion of any bonus paid in excess of $120,000 or pay an excise tax of 35 percent.

This is a bipartisan amendment. I urge my colleagues to accept it on a voice vote.

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