[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 7]
[House]
[Page 8754]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           TARP FUNDS ABROAD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, recently released documents from AIG 
accounts for some of the more than $180 billion in aid that AIG has 
received. And it's revealed that over $58 billion of that $180 billion 
has gone to foreign banks around the world. And $58 billion have gone 
to French banks, German banks. French and German banks, respectively, 
pulled in $19 billion and $17 billion of American taxpayer money.
  I understand the outrage over bonuses, $166 million in bonuses, but 
that's a pittance compared to the $58 billion that have gone to 
overseas banks. Societe Generale, based in France, was the top foreign 
recipient, at $11.9 billion. Deutsche Bank of Germany received $11.8 
billion of taxpayer money. Barclays, based in England, got $8.5 
billion. BNB Parabas, based in France, got $5 billion.
  The House Oversight Committee also discovered a list of questionable 
foreign investments conducted by the largest recipients of TARP funds. 
Citigroup, JP Morgan and Bank of America each received $25 billion in 
TARP funds on October 26th of last year. Citigroup then loaned Dubai $8 
billion of American taxpayer money. JP Morgan invested $1 billion of 
American taxpayer money in India. And Bank of America gave communist 
China $7 billion of the American people's money.
  Now, the American people have the right to be outraged at the fact 
that they are being taxed so that a government-owned, failed company 
like AIG can give bonuses to the very same executives who brought about 
the ruin of their company. Mr. Speaker, $166 million in bonuses is a 
lot of money. But it's a pittance, again, compared to that $58 billion 
that AIG used to bail out the rest of the world.
  So while hundreds of thousands of Americans get laid off each month, 
and even people with good credit can't get homes, can't get home loans, 
can't get car loans, our tax dollars are hard at work making sure 
foreign countries get helped first.
  Instead of giving billions of dollars worth of tax breaks and 
incentives to American companies who manufacture American products and 
hire American workers, our government has sided with foreign countries 
instead of being on the side of the American worker.
  To compound the problem, the United States has record trade deficits 
with the rest of the world. So while our government punishes American 
companies who actually make things with high taxes, burdensome 
regulations, petty environmental restrictions and unfair trade laws, 
foreign countries are getting American tax dollars to invest in their 
business infrastructure so they can take away more American jobs during 
an American recession.
  We allowed Bank of America to give $7 billion in taxpayer money to 
China, $7 billion in Americans' money to communist China, so they can 
build up their military and steal American jobs. That's criminal.
  The AIG bonus scandal is a big deal. The Treasury losing track of 
where the bailout money is going is appalling. But it's too late to 
just ask where the money's going or to try to get back the taxpayer-
subsidized bonuses, although those are good starts.

                              {time}  1645

  What we need to do now is stop spending. Just stop. No more TARP. No 
more stimulus. No cap-and-trade energy tax on small businesses, and 
surely, no more bailing out foreign countries like China and India 
while we spend and tax and borrow our way into oblivion.
  I respectfully ask the President of the United States to put the 
checkbook down.

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