[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 45 (Monday, March 16, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H3418]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     THE FORGOTTEN LESSONS OF HISTORY: FIXING THE FINANCIAL CRISIS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. McCotter) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McCOTTER. Mr. Speaker, picking up where the distinguished 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Jones) left off, I, too, wish to 
address the subject of American International Group, also known as AIG.
  As we have recently heard, having run the company into the ground and 
receiving a taxpayer bailout, roughly $173 billion, they are now going 
to give themselves $165 million in bonuses, the argument being that the 
contracts were entered into prior to the government bailout and, thus, 
darn the luck, their hands are tied. They will have to accept this 
money.
  And yet I think of another instance where taxpayer funds have been 
used, one-tenth of the amount, within the auto industry, where, right 
now, the men and women, white-collar employees and the United Auto 
Workers' blue-collar workforce, are busy renegotiating contracts so 
they can earn less in order to justify continued taxpayer support of 
our domestic auto industry. Clearly they understand what is necessary 
to restructure and be viable for the future, even if the individuals at 
AIG do not.
  What we are facing now is not only a crisis of confidence within our 
financial institutions, we are facing a crisis of confidence within our 
governmental institutions. As taxpayers watch hundreds of billions of 
their hard-earned dollars be spent on the very financial institutions 
that brought us to the precipice of a global depression, they now watch 
those individuals being rewarded with bonuses in amounts that no 
working family will ever see in a lifetime of sweat equity put into 
their professions and their careers.
  And they feel that it is unjust, that it is wrong. And they wonder 
how much longer this can continue. The sovereign American people want 
to know when their representative government will end the bailout of 
people such as AIG and restore order to our financial markets and 
justice to the taxpayers of the United States.
  Too often we forget the lessons of history, and so I would like to 
remind us of one. From 1832, when President Andrew Jackson confronted 
the Second Bank of the United States, he said, ``Gentlemen, I have had 
men watching you for a long time, and I am convinced that you have used 
the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. 
When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, 
you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits 
from the bank and annul the charter, I shall ruin 10,000 families. That 
may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin. Should I let you go on, 
you will ruin 50,000 families, and that would be my sin.''
  Toward the end of February we heard that the administration was in 
discussions with AIG to potentially reprivatize that institution, to 
have the government throw out their governing boards that have brought 
us to this point, take control and break them up and sell them off. 
That would be in the best interests of the American people.
  For the continuation of the theory that a necessary evil requires 
propping them up and allowing them to profit at taxpayer expense for 
the misfeasance that they have wrought would be unjust. Because, as 
Andrew Jackson also pointed out, there are no necessary evils in 
government.
  It is time for the American people's representative government to 
take swift and decisive action, stop the bleeding of the taxpayers, put 
AIG out of our misery and help restore confidence and stability to 
America's financial markets.

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