[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 13]
[Senate]
[Pages 19208-19209]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                      THE AIRLINE BAILOUT PACKAGE

  Mr. FITZGERALD. Mr. President, I want to take a few moments to lend 
my support to Senator Carnahan's measure, which would finally give some 
relief to the many airline workers in this country who have lost their 
jobs in recent weeks.
  I voted against the prior package to bail out the airlines of this 
country. Many of the Members in the Congress were under the impression 
that that $15 billion package was designed to compensate the airlines 
for their losses during the 3- or 4-day Government shutdown. But most 
Members don't recognize that during that 3- or even 4-day shutdown the 
airlines' lost revenues--not necessarily bottom line losses, but 
missing revenues--were $340 million a day. If you multiply $340 million 
a day by 4 days, as opposed to 3 days, being very generous to the 
airlines, you come up with losses of $1.36 billion. But Congress didn't 
give the airlines $1.36 billion; we gave them $5 billion in immediate 
upfront cash, plus $10 billion worth of loan guarantees. So the 
Nation's airlines got many times their losses from the 3-day shutdown 
from Congress.
  I thought that bailout package was excessive. I also thought that 
Congress perpetrated an injustice in shoveling out such large amounts 
of taxpayer money toward the airlines. We completely ignored the over 1 
million employees in the airline industry.
  It is a misnomer to call the airline bailout package an industry 
bailout package. It wasn't an industry bailout package; it was a 
shareholder bailout package. There was no bailout for the skycaps, or 
for the flight attendants, or the mechanics, or the baggage handlers, 
and the pilots didn't get bailed out. Instead, it was a bailout for the 
sophisticated investors who held airline stocks in their portfolios and 
the many large institutions holding airline stocks in their portfolios.
  I emphasize that it is a misnomer to call the airline bailout an 
industry bailout. It was simply a bailout for shareholders or 
investors. There was no relief for the over 1 million employees of the 
airline industry. It is fitting and proper to now provide relief for 
the airline industry employees.
  We should have done this in the original airline industry bailout. 
Out of that $15 billion which we gave to the airlines, we could have 
had some requirements that they give minimal severance or health care 
benefits to their employees, at least some requirements, some strings 
attached to assure the laid-off flight attendants, baggage handlers, 
pilots, and skycaps would be treated decently. But we did not do that 
in that bailout package.
  We have to correct the injustice in that first bailout package, and 
we have to help the industry's employees. The relief Senator Carnahan 
has put together in her package--and I am happy to say I am a 
cosponsor--is appropriate. It should have been in the original bill.

[[Page 19209]]

  As I said, we paid the airlines many times their losses for the 
period they were shut down. That created a terrible precedent, in my 
judgment, one that is haunting Congress every day this fall because we 
now are beset with industries from all over the country coming to 
Capitol Hill knocking on our door and saying: You gave all that money 
to the airlines. You bailed them out. You covered all their losses 
through December 31, 2001. You paid them not just for the days the 
Government shut them down by Government edict; you covered all their 
losses through the end of the year.
  Other industries are now saying to leaders in Washington: Why are we 
different? Why shouldn't we get a bailout? We have hotels that are 
empty. We have car rental firms that are hovering near insolvency 
because they do not have any customers. We have many of the suppliers 
for airlines--I was approached by a company in Illinois that supplies 
food for the airlines, and they believed they were entitled to a 
bailout.
  We have industries of all sorts that have come asking us for help, 
and because of the precedent we set in the airline industry bill, we do 
not know how to tell these other industries that they are not entitled 
to help.
  We should have carved aside a generous portion in that initial bill 
for workers in the airline industry. Senator Carnahan's amendment will 
get this done. I support it, and I urge colleagues to vote in favor of 
it. It would be a miscarriage of justice; it would compound the 
injustice we have already perpetrated if we were to let stand a bailout 
for sophisticated investors while we left all the airline industry 
employees twisting in the wind. We cannot allow that to stand. We have 
to correct that injustice.
  Many of these employees who have been furloughed maybe never had a 
nickel to invest in the market in the first place. They are worried 
about how they are going to pay their mortgage, or how they are going 
to pay their rent, or how they are going to feed their families while 
they are laid off. Meanwhile, many investors who should have 
appreciated the risk of investing in the airline industry were bailed 
out, but the skycap got the boot. We have to correct that.
  I am pleased to stand with the Senator from Missouri in support of 
this legislation. I urge all my colleagues to vote in favor of it.
  Mr. President, I thank you for your indulgence at this late hour and 
appreciate your attention. I yield the floor.

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