[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 33 (Tuesday, March 9, 2010)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1287-S1288]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         TAXPAYER FAIRNESS ACT

  Mrs. LINCOLN. Mr. President, I rise today in support of a proposal 
that has been offered on this bill that we are currently dealing with 
that will hold the bailed-out Wall Street companies and their 
executives more accountable to American taxpayers.
  Over the last 2 years, the top TARP recipients have paid out tens of 
billions of dollars in employee bonuses, while at the same time 
taxpayers have been footing the bill for bailing out these large 
financial institutions.
  Enough is enough. All we have to do is look across this great land of 
ours to see so many people in businesses--small businesses in small 
communities across America--who are in difficult times. This 
amendment--the Taxpayer Fairness Act--included in the Senate jobs bill 
would put in place a one-time windfall tax on bonuses paid in 2010 to 
company executives who received the taxpayer bailout.
  Specifically, the amendment provides a 50-percent tax on bonuses 
above $400,000 paid to financial institution executives who received at 
least $5 billion in taxpayer support. That is just common sense to all 
of us here who realize how important it is to be respectful of the 
taxpayers and make sure that as we have made available these resources 
to these Wall Street industries, to at least have the acknowledgment 
and respect from them of what the rest of America is going through.
  I have fought for years to hold Wall Street more accountable. During 
the TARP debate in the fall of 2008, I pushed for stricter limits on 
executive compensation, which went unheeded in the Bush Treasury 
Department's implementation of the program. Later that year, I also 
cosponsored legislation that would have capped executives' salaries at 
bailed-out banks. In March of 2009, I sent a letter to the AIG chairman 
calling on his executives to forfeit their $165 million in bonuses or 
face unprecedented congressional action to strip them of their so-
called ``performance-based'' rewards.
  During the debate on the Recovery Act, in early 2009, the Senate 
passed my amendment to place an excise tax on bonuses from financial 
institutions that had received taxpayer dollars under TARP. Wall Street 
needs to understand that in these extraordinary times they must change 
their ways of doing business. They must play by the same rules that 
Arkansas families and businesses and other small towns and States 
across the Nation have to play by.
  When a small business owner in our home State of Arkansas has a bad 
year, they have two options: They either buckle down and trim the fat 
or they go out of business. They do not come to the steps of the 
Capitol and ask for a government check, and they surely do not give 
themselves a lavish pay raise.
  Arkansans are rightly irritated, just as I am. Let's not forget the 
actions of some of these firms are what sent our economy into dire 
straits in the very beginning. For almost 2 years now, Americans have 
paid the price for Wall Street's mistakes. They have lost jobs, they 
have seen their property values diminish, and they have seen their 
retirement savings depleted. So it flies in the face of common sense 
and general prudence for those accountable to reward themselves when 
the rest of the country is shouldering the burden they created.
  This amendment must be enacted to send the message to Wall Street 
that we will not stand for such behavior. The time is right now, and we 
must send the message to all of America that we are not going to stand 
for this type of fiscal irresponsibility. I encourage my colleagues to 
stand with Main Street, not Wall Street, and support this important 
amendment.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor, and I suggest the absence of a 
quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.

[[Page S1288]]

  Mrs. LINCOLN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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