[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 45 (Monday, March 16, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H3415]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         SOMEBODY ELSE'S MONEY

  (Mr. POE of Texas asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. POE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, Uncle Sam keeps giving away taxpayer 
money to businesses that claim they are too important to fail. Some of 
these irresponsible corporations helped bring on this economic crisis.
  Our government seems to be just as irresponsible in the way that it 
spends America's money. AIG received $85 billion in bailout money from 
our gracious government, but the Feds put little or no restrictions on 
that money. So, AIG is giving $165 million of that money in bonuses to 
its own employees. You know, those are the same people that put AIG in 
this economic turmoil.
  To make matters worse, since $85 billion wasn't enough, irresponsible 
Uncle Sam is promising to fork over $30 billion more of somebody else's 
money to AIG. Now we learn AIG is sending some of that taxpayer money 
to Europe, including French banks.
  Normally the government should not tell private businesses how to 
operate, but when 80 percent of the business is run by the government, 
as AIG is, the government has the duty to protect taxpayer money. Thus 
far, Uncle Sam has had a reckless disregard for the way it throws 
citizen money around.
  And that's just the way it is.

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