[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 48 (Thursday, March 19, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Page S3385]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                  AIG

  Mr. CORNYN. Madam President, I rise to speak about the public's 
outrage over the revelations that senior executives at AIG have 
received bailout bonuses. This company received $173 billion in 
taxpayer money, including tens of billions of dollars through the 
Troubled Asset Relief Program. The American people do deserve to know 
where their money is going.
  I confess that last year I supported the first round of TARP money 
based on the representation from what I thought were the smartest 
people in the country that it was absolutely necessary to unfreeze the 
frozen credit markets in our country. But I did not support additional 
money for the TARP funding when it was requested--the second tranche, 
so to speak--because the accountability and the transparency we were 
promised by the Treasury Department the first time around never 
materialized. We were told this money was necessary to prevent a crisis 
in our country. Now, we do have a crisis, but that crisis is a crisis 
of confidence in this administration and in the leaders of this 
Congress.
  The American people have legitimate and urgent questions about these 
bailout bonuses, and these questions demand answers. First of all, they 
want to know how this happened. A lot of people are pointing fingers 
over these bailout bonuses, and right now there is a lot we do not 
know.
  I appreciate the fact that President Obama said: You know what, 
people are trying to find fault. I accept the blame.
  I appreciate the gesture, but that is simply not good enough. We do 
not know when the administration became aware of these bonuses. 
Secretary Geithner says he learned of the bonuses last Tuesday. 
President Obama said he learned about them on Thursday. Yet the Federal 
Reserve Bank of New York says it notified Treasury in February. And 
Edward Liddy, the CEO of AIG, testified that everyone knew about these 
bonuses for months and that he and Secretary Geithner spoke about the 
bailout bonuses 2 weeks ago. What is clear is that the administration 
should have known about these bonuses a lot earlier and they should 
have taken action before they sent AIG another $30 billion this month.
  We also know how these bailout bonuses got legal protection in the 
stimulus bill. I voted against the stimulus bill for reasons too 
numerous to mention here. Yet the bill that passed out of this Chamber 
had two amendments that addressed bailout bonuses: One amendment, 
sponsored by Senator Wyden and Senator Snowe, would have taxed these 
bonuses; another, sponsored by Senator Dodd, the Senator from 
Connecticut, would have banned the bailout bonuses altogether. These 
amendments were in the bill that passed out of the Senate, but 
something happened in the conference. The Snowe-Wyden amendment 
disappeared completely and the Dodd amendment was changed so that it 
grandfathered in all the bailout bonuses in place on or before February 
11. No one admits to knowing how this happened. None of the conferees 
admit to knowing. There have been conflicting reports about who knew 
what when. But the American people need to know who protected these 
bailout bonuses in a law that was signed by President Obama--one among 
those who claim outrage at the revelation that now these bonuses are 
going to be received. He signed the law into effect that actually 
protected these bonuses in the stimulus plan.
  The American people deserve to know who proposed these changes in the 
stimulus bill, who knew about these changes, and who approved these 
changes. The American people deserve to know who is responsible and how 
they intend to fix this problem and get the bailout bonus money back in 
a constitutional and legal way.
  How do we assure this does not happen again? As those responsible 
scramble to come up with an explanation, we must also understand what 
we must do to ensure this type of thing never happens again. I would 
like to offer a few suggestions.
  First, Congress needs to stop passing bills without reading them, 
finding out what is in them, and preparing for their implementation. 
During the transition, the then-incoming administration said they 
didn't want to waste a crisis, and Congress complied. Yet their 
leadership has taught us a different lesson: Treating everything like a 
crisis actually leads to waste.
  Second, it is clear the administration needs to get its team in 
place. Better oversight by the Treasury Department could have avoided 
this problem. Yet, as Paul Volcker observed, Secretary Geithner ``is 
sitting there without a deputy, without any under secretaries, with no 
assistant secretary responsible in substantive areas at a time of 
obviously very severe crisis.'' I appreciate that President Obama has 
completed his March Madness tournament bracket. Yet the organization 
chart for this administration still has far too many open slots.
  Third, the President needs to shelve his plans to grow the size of 
Government. His plans to raise more taxes can wait until the 
administration proves they can be good stewards of the tax dollars we 
are already spending. His plans to nationalize health care, energy, and 
education can also wait until he addresses the problem of toxic assets 
in our financial system and gets our economy moving again.
  Fourth, the President needs to fulfill his pledge to promote 
transparency and accountability and bipartisanship in Washington--
something I agree with. The President won the support of the American 
people because he promised to be a different kind of leader. Yet we see 
that the more things change, the more they seem to be the same here in 
Washington. Lack of transparency in Congress helped protect these 
bailout bonuses in law--passed by the Senate without my vote and signed 
by the President of the United States. Lack of accountability at the 
other end of Pennsylvania Avenue speeded this money out the door.
  If the President's efforts at bipartisanship had been substantive--
more than photo ops and press releases--then we might have delivered a 
better stimulus bill and not squandered the trust of the American 
people.
  I yield the floor.

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