[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 1948]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                     SECRETARY OF TREASURY GEITHNER

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Kaptur) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, the House of Representatives voted last 
week, disapproving of the release of the second tranche of Wall Street 
bailout--called TARP moneys--to the U.S. Treasury. I disapproved, along 
with a majority of our colleagues here, on sending more money over 
there. Of course our vote made no difference.
  It is really amazing how this unusual procedure was adopted in the 
original bill passed last year that basically took away our rights as 
Members of this House. So the money was released to Treasury, and what 
happens over there becomes more troubling every day.
  Now, the Senate basically gave the newly named Secretary of Treasury 
a pass, even though Mr. Geithner failed to pay his taxes. He didn't 
fail to pay $100 or $200 or $10,000 or $20,000--I think it was well 
over $34,000, and he's the person now responsible for overseeing the 
Internal Revenue Service and the entire bailout.
  In addition, as the administration seeks to reduce the influence of 
lobbyists, as the Secretary issues statements on reducing the influence 
of lobbyists on Treasury policy and directing TARP funds, how could he 
then, as Secretary of Treasury, hire a lobbyist--a lobbyist who had 
been hired by Goldman Sachs--and put that lobbyist as his Chief of 
Staff? In case you really didn't know it, Goldman Sachs used to be one 
of those Wall Street gambling houses that lost all of their investors' 
money. And then, when they got in trouble, they did something very 
clever; overnight they became a bank holding company, which means they 
came under the protections of the insurance fund that other banks that 
had been responsibly managed had paid into for decades. But they were 
powerful enough to ride right over them and to land themselves there, 
and then put their hand out for $10 billion of bailout money. Now 
that's a real clever score.
  Now, we can be pretty certain that Treasury's Chief of Staff will 
welcome his old friends and colleagues to the Treasury as the bailout 
funds and other banking issues come up. Wouldn't surprise me at all. 
But isn't that what President Obama is really trying to prevent?
  On top of this, Secretary Geithner received nearly a half a million 
dollars--half a million dollars--in severance from the Federal Reserve 
Bank of New York when he left.
  Now, we know that the New York Fed and the Treasury are very 
connected--it's like an umbilical cord tying the two together--and they 
just circulate their people up and down between New York and 
Washington, and then the people of the other States have to pay for the 
wrongdoing they get into about every 10, 15 years or so. USA Today 
reports the Government Accountability Office has questioned Treasury's 
policies in a December report, saying the Department didn't have a plan 
to monitor conflicts of interest. Of course they say they will work to 
address this, but can we be sure that conflicts of interest have been 
scrubbed clean? No, of course not.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentlewoman's time has expired.
  Ms. KAPTUR. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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