Providing for Consideration of Motions to Suspend the Rules
Floor Speech
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF MOTIONS TO SUSPEND THE RULES -- (House of Representatives - March 19, 2009)
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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, we are not tearing up the Constitution here, we are responding to bad behavior. We are telling corporate America that we are not going to bail them out, our financial institutions. We are not going to bail them out and let them do what AIG just did.
The American people are outraged, and rightly so, at the news that insurance giant AIG has given large bonuses to some of its employees. It is outrageous that a company that is being bailed out by the American people is providing bonuses to the people who dealt in these exotic financial instruments. Those employees made bad bets, and now the American people are paying the tab.
Mr. Speaker, not many of my constituents are getting so-called retention bonuses these days, and I can tell you that. They are not sure if they are going to wake up tomorrow with a job.
In Fall River, the unemployment rate is 16 percent. The city is being forced to lay off police officers and firefighters. Food banks are at their capacity, and they are being asked to pony up so-called retention bonuses for the people who got us into this mess? It is absolutely nuts.
Now I know that the CEO of AIG said yesterday that he has asked the people who have received these bonuses to give them back, and that's great. But I am afraid we can't simply rely on their good-hearted generosity. I understand, and I support the need to ensure the stability of the American banking system.
We need to get the credit flowing again. We need to make sure that people have access to mortgages and car loans and student loans. We need to make sure that small businesses have access to credit.
But we also need to make sure that bad behavior isn't rewarded with taxpayer money, and that's what this bill is all about. And as President Obama has rightly said, we must also put in place the appropriate rules and regulations going forward so that this kind of financial collapse never happens again.
Mr. Speaker, we need to get this right. We inherited a lousy economy from the previous administration, and we are in a position now where we need to help us support our financial institutions, but we need to make sure that we do so in a way that doesn't allow this kind of bad behavior to continue.
I applaud Speaker Pelosi and the leadership for bringing this bill to the floor. I urge my colleagues to support the rule and the underlying bill.
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