[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 153 (Wednesday, October 21, 2009)]
[House]
[Page H11559]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      ECONOMY IS NOT DOING BETTER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Madam Speaker, just this morning to a roomful of Members 
of Congress, Secretary of Treasury Tim Geithner said, and I quote, 
``Our economy is doing better.'' Boy, is he out of touch. Let him come 
to Ohio. Let him see where our people are living and what we are 
enduring.
  Like many communities across our country, our region has been 
devastated by the irresponsibility of the big banks where he came from. 
We have local banking institutions that were prudent in their lending 
and had strict underwriting. They belong to the Federal Deposit 
Insurance Corporation, and they have for many decades. They adhere to 
real rules and regulation, and they have regulators in their banks 
frequently, and they don't look for special privileges or taxpayer 
bailouts.
  Overall, these community banks did not contribute to the downfall of 
our economy, and they were not propped up by the Federal Government. 
Why is this important? Because locally owned and operated banks and 
credit unions create real economic opportunity in their communities 
across this country. They invest local capital. They fund local, small 
and medium-size businesses, and they are accountable to their 
customers. They know them by name.
  Right now, in most economically depressed communities, because of 
what happened on Wall Street and the megabanks, credit is shut down. 
It's hard for our small businesses to keep their doors open. They don't 
want money from TARP and the Federal Government like the Wall Street 
banks. They just want to return to business as it used to be, prudent, 
responsible, innovative, creating local capital in the marketplace.
  But in America, there is no business as usual right now. On Monday, I 
met with many of these local bankers and credit unions, and what I 
heard makes me sad and makes me angry, and it makes me troubled for the 
future of our Nation. One banker told how he worked his way up in one 
of the big banks and then saw how capital moved away from our community 
to where that bank was headquartered. He didn't want to leave our 
community, so he went to work for a local bank, where he has now become 
the head of that bank.
  What's on the horizon for that institution? The FDIC fees that have 
to be paid by these local banks that didn't do anything wrong are going 
up astronomically, from maybe $37,000 or $40,000 a year to over 
$450,000 a year, because of what the big banks did, not because of what 
they did. Why should our local banks be made to pay the price of the 
excess of Wall Street?
  Credit unions, they told us one that had a $20,000 fee in their share 
insurance fund. They are going up to over $240,000 this year. That 
could shut down credit unions across this country. Why? Because the 
``too big to fail'' banks are dipping into the coffers. What's 
happening at the local level is that as these higher fees have to be 
paid, those local institutions can't make loans.
  I will tell you what's going on: A further concentration of our 
banking system in the hands of too few. Five banks in our country now 
have 37 percent of the deposits in our Nation. What does that say to 
you?
  When will the price of credit be controlled by the very few? In fact, 
it is right now. Smaller banks are drying up. The FDIC has had to 
resolve dozens and dozens of them, and more are on the chopping block. 
Nearly 100 banks have been resolved this year alone, and the FDIC fund 
has taken a serious hit. It is going to take a bigger hit. Now they are 
going to the healthy banks to try to pay for the ones that didn't do it 
right in the first place.
  So, who should step in? Where's Congress? What are we doing? We are 
diddling at the edges rather than dealing with the reality of what's 
happening in communities across this country.
  You know what? It's time to break up these big financial 
institutions. We ought to take them into receivership like other 
Presidents have done in prior years in prior decades. We ought to 
resolve the loans on their books, and we ought to incentivize the part 
of our economy and those banks and credit unions that didn't do 
anything wrong.
  That isn't happening. ``Too big to fail'' has to leave our financial 
vocabulary. It's time to return to Banking 101.
  Wall Street was rewarded for bad behavior, and they have been 
rewarded for the last 15 years. They will do it again, and they are 
being rewarded again. So what do you think they are going to do again?
  No more rewards.
  Madam Speaker, the culture of greed and excess has to go if America 
is to survive this terrible meltdown. The big banks should be taken 
into receivership, their books resolved, and their burden taken off the 
rest of us, our financial system and the good actors in it, our 
taxpayers, so our economy can grow again. Nothing else should be 
acceptable to the President, the Congress and this country. It's long 
overdue to stop the billion-dollar bonuses and restore finance as usual 
in our country.

                          ____________________