[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 6]
[House]
[Page 7591]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




            WHAT'S GOOD FOR DETROIT IS GOOD FOR WALL STREET

  (Mrs. MILLER of Michigan asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute and to revise and extend her remarks.)
  Mrs. MILLER of Michigan. Mr. Speaker, this week, we saw the latest 
outrage from Wall Street when it was exposed that AIG paid out hundreds 
of millions of dollars in bonuses, much of which went to workers in the 
division that helped actually cause the economic meltdown, and all with 
taxpayers' money. The excuse we are given is that those are contractual 
obligations and they must be paid, and we are supposed to just accept 
that.
  Let us contrast that with how American auto workers are treated when 
General Motors or Chrysler need bridge loans from the government. They 
are told that they make too much money and that their contracts are 
killing the companies, and that they must take less or else the Federal 
Government will let the companies die.
  So let's get this straight; AIG employees, who helped implode the 
economy, are given bonuses with taxpayers' money because it's in their 
contract, while UAW workers whose companies were badly hurt by the 
economic meltdown--partially caused by AIG--are told that their 
contracts must be disregarded or renegotiated. That is a vivid example 
of the double standard where people who work on Wall Street get their 
contracts upheld, but people who work on the line, it doesn't matter, 
and let them eat cake. This is wrong, Mr. Speaker.

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