Economic Injustice In America

Floor Speech

Madam Speaker, here is something that will grab you. It was reported this month that Goldman Sachs, the favored Wall Street firm that has way too much special access in this city and that got bailed out by the American people to the tune of billions and is now handing those over in bonuses to their executives, has paid a net effective tax rate of 1 percent. You heard me right--1 percent, Goldman Sachs.

When most small businesses and corporations in this country are paying at a 35 percent tax rate, Wall Street's elites still don't carry their fair share. Imagine that secretaries, nurses, firefighters, cleaning crews--the middle class of this country--pay at a higher rate than Goldman Sachs.

Meanwhile, the chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, Mr. Lloyd Blankfein, harvested over $140 million in salary as head of that firm. When he was asked, Well, isn't this a bit too much? His answer was that he's doing God's work. I call that blasphemy.

This is fundamental economic injustice in America, and the American people know it. They're voting their frustration. They expect Congress to listen to them, not to continue to reward Wall Street's overprivileged scions at their expense.

Bill Moyers Journal
(By Bill Moyers)

The ancient Romans had a proverb: ``Monday is like sea water. The more you drink, the thirstier you become.'' That adage finds particular meaning today on Wall Street, which began this New Year riding a tidal wave of bonuses in a surging ocean of greed.

Thanks to taxpayers like you who generously bailed banking from the financial shipwreck it created for itself and for us, by the end of 2009 the industry's compensation pool reached nearly $200 billion. And despite windfall profits, the banks will claim almost $80 billion in tax deductions. And nearly $20 billion of those deductions will go to just three institutions--Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase, and Goldman Sachs.

Ah, yes--Goldman Sachs, that paragon of profit and probity--which bet big on the housing bubble and when it popped--presto!--converted itself from an investment firm into a bank so it could get your bailout money. Now consider this: In 2008, Goldman Sachs paid an effective tax rate of just one percent. I'm not making that up--one percent!--while their CEO Lloyd Blankfein
pulled down over $40 million. That's God's work, if you can get it. And, believe me, Wall Street bankers know how to get it.

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