[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 48 (Thursday, March 19, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3515-S3516]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              AIG BONUSES

  Mrs. SHAHEEN. Madam President, I would like to applaud my colleague, 
Senator Whitehouse, for his comments, particularly around health care. 
I know all of us believe that is critical for us to address.
  I rise to express my outrage that AIG has paid over $165 million in 
bonuses to executives at the company, after they received a $173 
billion bailout in taxpayer funds. We all know the economic conditions 
we are facing are very difficult. Unemployment continues to climb 
around the country and in my home State of New Hampshire. Families are 
struggling to make ends meet. Existing home sales are at their lowest 
levels in more than a decade. Small businesses around the country and 
in New Hampshire are working hard just to make payroll, to buy 
inventory, and to keep their businesses viable. In fact, this morning I 
heard from a small businessman in New Hampshire, Mark Lane, who is the 
head of Coed Sportswear and Printed Matter, talk about the challenges 
he faces in this recession, trying to get access to credit to keep his 
business going.
  Yet while small businesses and middle-class families are struggling 
to make it through these difficult times, the very people whose 
reckless decisionmaking helped put us in this precarious economic 
situation are rewarding themselves with bonuses paid for with taxpayer 
dollars. This is unconscionable.
  We have been told nothing can be done about the bonuses to AIG 
employees because they are contractual commitments. Yesterday, we heard 
the CEO of AIG say he has asked the recipients of the bonuses to give 
the money back. I believe those employees should do that, and I hope 
they will. But we should make sure that when taxpayer money is used, we 
have done

[[Page S3516]]

everything possible to prevent the kind of excesses we have seen with 
AIG.
  As a condition of providing financing to General Motors and Chrysler, 
the Treasury Department required the automakers to renegotiate their 
collective bargaining agreements with their workers. In order for their 
employers to get loans from the Treasury, autoworkers gave up cost-of-
living increases to their wages and bonuses, among other benefits. It 
is our obligation, as we did with General Motors and Chrysler, to 
protect taxpayer dollars. That is why, in January of this year, I voted 
against releasing an additional $350 billion in TARP funding. I opposed 
the release of this funding because I believed we did not have adequate 
accounting of the money the United States had already spent in the 
bailout. At the time I said: We need legislation to enhance 
transparency and to enhance taxpayer protections before we release 
additional money.
  Earlier this year, Senator Dorgan introduced the Taxpayer Protection 
Act, something I quickly signed on to as a cosponsor. This legislation 
is designed to limit executive compensation, to prohibit the kinds of 
bonuses companies such as AIG, which have received Federal economic 
assistance, can provide to their employees or their executives. Today 
we are reminded that the use of taxpayer money should be held to the 
highest standards of transparency and accountability.
  I am hopeful this administration--and we have heard the President say 
he is committed to doing something about the situation at AIG, and we 
know this Senate is committed to doing something about the situation at 
AIG with their executive bonuses--and this body will take the 
appropriate action to recover the taxpayer dollars AIG has so 
recklessly spent on bonuses. I intend to do everything I can to support 
those efforts.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.

                          ____________________