House Proceeding 03-24-09 on Mar 24th, 2009 :: 5:13:50 to 5:33:50
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5:12:25 to 5:13:50( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Shelley Berkley

5:13:30 to 5:13:52( Edit History Discussion )

Shelley Berkley: back, do those business meetings. stop cancelling. stop being foolish and do your business in las vegas, california, miami, new york city, we need you. mr. farr: explore more. ms. berkley: thank you all for sharing this hour with me. you have made it -- i've learned

5:13:53 to 5:14:13( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: things from everybody that's participated. and i appreciate everything that you've said. thank you so much. i yield back the balance of our time. the speaker pro tempore: viv las vegas. under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the chair recognizes the gentleman from ohio, mr. latourette, for 60 minutes.

5:13:55 to 5:24:00( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Steven C. LaTourette

5:14:14 to 5:14:34( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: mr. latourette: i thank you for the recognition and i thank the minority leader for granting us this hour. i'm going to be joined by mr. ti berry and mr. austria of ohio and we are going to talk about wh occurred last week and the week before. i know the speaker will remember

5:14:35 to 5:14:55( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: that the capitol is sort of roiled and our constituents are upset over the news that somehow after getting billions of dollars of taxpayer funds, the insurance company, a.i.g., awarded $170 million in bonuses. and a lot of people came to the floor last week and said they were shocked.

5:14:56 to 5:15:16( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: and i said last week, i'm really shocked at the sho, because i can't figure out how some people in this chamber and at the other d of pennsylvania avenue can be shocked when they approved the language that authorized the bonuses. and just a little bit of history here, mr. speaker. when the economic plan, the

5:15:17 to 5:15:38( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: stimulus bill, was making its way through the united states congress, there was an amendment offered by two senators, a democratic senator fro senator wyden and a republican senator from maine, senator snowe, and that would put a limitation on bonuses like in the a.i.g. case, that basically

5:15:39 to 5:15:59( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: said that you are receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to bail you out, perhaps you shouldn't be given millions of dollars away in bon this moment in time. if you're not taking the taxpayer money, you run your business as you see fit. that amendment was adopted by voice vote in the senate and was

5:16:00 to 5:16:20( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: included in the senate version of the stimulus bill. and so, you know, i read about it in the newspaper, and i thought ok, the bill's in pretty good shape. when the bill went into the conference committee -- mr. speaker, i know you know this, but for those who may not be educated with how things work here, we pass a bill here and

5:16:21 to 5:16:42( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: the senate passes a bill and each house appoints a few members and they meet in a room and they sort out the differences between the two bills and we get a conference report. now in years past -- this is my 15th year -- that conference committee included democrats and republicans. we, being republicans, were in the majority for 12 years and

5:16:43 to 5:17:03( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: the democrats would come into the room and democrats would come into the room, the senators would come into the room and we would hash out the differences. and at the end of the process, everybody who was on the conference committee would sign the report and that's what you have. sadly, even though people have discussed this being the most transparent administration, the most transparent congress in the

5:17:04 to 5:17:24( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: history of the country, no republins were invited into the conference room. and clearly what we have seen sadly what we've seen is that the congress is about as transparent as this envelope. and we're not being included. and you know what? we don't have to be included.

5:17:25 to 5:17:47( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: we are this the minority and clearly the majority party can write legislation as they see fit. but what they can't do is what happened last week, and so in this conference room, all of a sudden somehow the snowe- language is removed and the words behind me, only about 50

5:17:48 to 5:18:09( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: words, were inserted. and this langue specifically authorized the payment of millions of dollars of bonuses to people at a.i.g. and anywhere else. so anybody who voted -- when it came to us back in the house for a vote, this language was included in the bill. so the reason i say i was

5:18:10 to 5:18:30( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: shocked at people's shock is that anybody who voted for the stimulus bill voted to give and authorize and protect the bonuses at a.i.g. and any other company that's taking billions of dollars through the bailout program. now, we don't know -- and i know the speaker will rember last week we were on the floor for out how did it happen.

5:18:31 to 5:18:52( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: and we started with -- i talked about the fact that there is a face book, 435 members of congress, 100 senators and we began crossing them out and got down to 520 during the course of that hour. and i indicated we would come back and report to the speaker the progress of this search. and i'm pleased to report to you

5:18:53 to 5:19:13( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: that we have made significant progress. and my friends and i are going to talk about this this evening. we can r republicans, because there were no republican representatives in the room. we can also remove all 41 republican senators, because they were were not in the room. and i mentioned that we also

5:19:14 to 5:19:35( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: have this senate race that is unresolved in minnesota and cross off al franken and senator kohl man. they are not the culprits. we got down to a smaller group. but then our group exp because there are a couple of news reports out that there were people from the administration that were also participating in these negotiations.

5:19:36 to 5:19:58( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: so we had to add a few suspects to figure it out. now, what's disappointing is that in a transparent administration and transparent congress, people make mistakes. i probably made three before ump lunch today. when you make a mistake, you should say i made a mistake. what's not acceptable is to

5:19:59 to 5:20:20( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: compound the mistake by pretending you didn't know about it and then when you're caught, you come up with goofy pieces of legislation to tax people at 90%. that was political theater. it never is going to become law. these people that are so outraged about a.i.g. executives

5:20:21 to 5:20:43( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: getting bonuses, they're going to get their bonuses, because that bill's not going anywhere. and my friend is going to talk about that in a second. that isn't going to become law. that was to provide cover for people who voted for the economic recovery bill, because they found out, sadly, that they had authorized these 50 words that protected the a.i.g.

5:20:44 to 5:21:04( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: bonuses and now they're shocked. now, on our side, i have to tell you that we were kind of saddened even though we don't need to be invited into the rooms, we don't have to be invited to negotiate, before the stimulus bill came to a vote in the house, we had a motion that was made and the motion said that before any member of

5:21:05 to 5:21:25( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: congress is asked to vote on the stimulus bill, we're going to have 48 hours to read it. every member of this house, every republican and every democrat that was here, voted to give 48 hours for every member to read the bill and that's probably a good idea because the bill was over 1,000 pages long.

5:21:26 to 5:21:46( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: sometime between tuesday when every member said we're going to get 48 hours and friday when we voted on the bill, people forgot that promise and we were given 90 minutes to read 1 to determine whether or not we could be supportive of the president's most important

5:21:47 to 5:22:07( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: domestic economic policy position. . and i voted no. i don't have a problem with the fact think a voted no. there were some good things in the stimulus pill and horrible things in the stimulus bill. i couldn't go home to cleveland and say to people, yeah, i voted for it and -- because i didn't read it. and i don't think any member of

5:22:08 to 5:22:28( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: this chamber read the bill and if they did then more power to them. but i doupt everybody read the thous read the thousand pages. so what that leads to is the embarrassment and the embarrassment is that everybody who voted for that stimulus bill voted to give the bonuses to a.i.g. then to cover their tracks they come up with with this, oh,

5:22:29 to 5:22:49( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: let's tax them at 90%. which if you think about it is pretty silly, too, because let's say the guy at a.i.g. got $5 million in a bonus. well, under that bill, he still gets to keep half a million dollars. so if you're so outraged, why don't you take all the money away from him? forget about the constitutional arguments and the bills of retainer and other business.

5:22:50 to 5:23:10( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: it was political theater and it makes you sad when that happens. so we are going to spend the remainder of our time this evening attempting to sort of ferret out who was in the room and i have good news bazz the secretary of the treasury -- because the secretary of the treasury was at the financial services meeting and the

5:23:11 to 5:23:31( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: se in the room when this happened and he said he was not. so we can cross off the secretary of the treasury. he was not in the room when this was done. last week during the course of the debate on ms. kilroy's resolution saying that they were doing everything they could to stop these businesses, we asked the chairman of the

5:23:32 to 5:23:52( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: financial services committee, mr. frank of massachusetts, he said he wasn't in the room, so he's off the list as well. and the speaker actually indicated the other day, speaker pelosi, that nobody from the house did it. and so we have to look elsewhere, i guess, and we're going to talk a little bit about that.

5:23:53 to 5:24:00( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: but first to sort of set the table on this bill, this 90% tax bill, this political

5:24:01 to 5:24:22( Edit History Discussion )

Steve Austria: theater that was a farce, that was a fig tree, i want to yield just for a minute to my friend, steve austria from ohio. just to talk about what we think the prognosis is for this tax bill. mr. austria: i thank the gentleman from ohio for yielding. our senior member, next to our leader, our senior member from ohio.

5:24:05 to 5:30:45( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Steve Austria

5:24:23 to 5:24:44( Edit History Discussion )

Steve Austria: i thank you for yielding. being a new member of congress, having served less than 100 days in congress, to be faced with what we're faced with right now, the amount of spending, the amount of borrowing, the amount of debt that's accumulating. i didn't come to congress, i have three sons at home to pass this type of debt onto our children. but specifically talki about the bailout, talking about

5:24:45 to 5:25:07( Edit History Discussion )

Steve Austria: a.i.g., what's happened, one of the first bills that i was asked to vote on was the second half of tarp. the financial market bailout. a $700 billion bailout. something that i felt when i was running for office, looking from the outside in, felt was a bad idea for government to get involved, to not have accountability, not have

5:25:08 to 5:25:29( Edit History Discussion )

Steve Austria: transparency and not have a plan, as the gentleman from ohio described, a plan that was brokered behind closed doors by a small grew group of individuals. as a member of congress, i have toll you that my views haven't changed. on that particular bill, when we voted on that bill, i could not find answers on how the

5:25:30 to 5:25:51( Edit History Discussion )

Steve Austria: first half of the $350 billion, the first half of the $700 billion bailout, how that money was spent, could not find, as far as any type of specific plan from the department of treasury on how they were going to turn around the financial markets and there was no accountability. and i had a real problem with

5:25:52 to 5:26:13( Edit History Discussion )

Steve Austria: that, with the tarp bill. and now as the gentleman from ohio talked about the stimulus bill, language that was inserted in a bill in which leader boehner stood on this floor and held up 1,100 pages approximately that not one member had the opportunity to read before we voted on, you know, to me, that is a terrible

5:26:14 to 5:26:35( Edit History Discussion )

Steve Austria: reason to be passing a bill and we should have had an opportunity to read that bill and understand what was in it before we voted on it. but when you have no accountability, when you have no transparency, when you have going to use that money to turn the financial markets around, when you have no opportunity to read the stimulus or spending

5:26:36 to 5:26:57( Edit History Discussion )

Steve Austria: bill, what that equals is disaster. and that's what we saw last week. we saw outrage. we saw the american people beginning to understand for the first time what was happening here in d.c. when 16 depsh $160 million-some of bonuses were paid out to executives and employees, of their hard-earned

5:26:58 to 5:27:19( Edit History Discussion )

Steve Austria: money, $170 billion of their hard-earned taxpayer money that was used to bail out the same company. i do believe we had some opportunities to do better. and in an effort to try to resolve this situation, one of the things that i did was stand up with 14 members of our freshman class -- freshmen class and introduce a bill to

5:27:20 to 5:27:42( Edit History Discussion )

Steve Austria: try to get that money back. going in a different way, rather than raising taxes 90%, getting 100% of that money back, asking the department of treasury to use every resource they had available to get that money back within two weeks. to ensure that any future contracts that the department of treasury would sign off on those contracts and know what

5:27:43 to 5:28:03( Edit History Discussion )

Steve Austria: we're using that bailout money for. the government now owns, i believe it's 0% of a.i.g. -- 80% of a.i.g. unfortunately that bill, we haven't had any hearings on that bill and it doesn't appear as though it's going to move. the opposite side decided they were going to come up with a different solution, with a 90%

5:28:04 to 5:28:25( Edit History Discussion )

Steve Austria: tax, to try to move that forward. but what's happening here and i know many people are getting their quarterly statemen, their financial statements, they're beginning to see their accounts, their 401-k's, requirement accounts, their children's education funds, their savings accounts, they're down significantly. we've had lls in our office where people have lost 40%, 50%

5:28:26 to 5:28:47( Edit History Discussion )

Steve Austria: of their money and they're very concerned as to what's happening with the financial market bailouts. and i think we have an opportunity and we have an obligation to turn things around to ensure that e taxpayers' dollars, the $700 billion that were used, that passed this body to be used to

5:28:48 to 5:29:09( Edit History Discussion )

Steve Austria: bail out the financial markets, that that there is transparency so we know exactly what's happening, that there's a plan in place so we can better understand. what we're finding out is that some of the dollars that have been spent were bad investments. i'm looking at testimony from elizabeth warren from the congressional oversight panel to the senate banking

5:29:10 to 5:29:31( Edit History Discussion )

Steve Austria: committee, it talks about how e treasury invested about $254 billion in assets that were worth only approximately $176 billion. a shortfall of $78 billion. we can do better than that. when you talked about the $165 -- or $1 million bonuses that

5:29:32 to 5:29:54( Edit History Discussion )

Steve Austria: were paid out to these employees and i'm looking at news article, this is from the "new york post" last week, quote, fully 73 executives got $1 million or more each, of whom 22 were paid at least $2 million, while seven got $4 million and one lucky duck pocketted a cool $6.4 million.

5:29:55 to 5:30:15( Edit History Discussion )

Steve Austria: we can do better than that. the american people expect us to do better than that and deserve better than that. but what all this is doing, this is creating uncertainty in the market, when you don't have a plan. and there is no accountability for these dollars. in my prior life before being a state legislator for 10 years, coming to congress, i was a

5:30:16 to 5:30:37( Edit History Discussion )

Steve Austria: small business owner. i was a financial advisor. and one thing i can tell you that is certain is that our financial markets, our businesses, they don't like uncertainty and we're seeing big fluctuations in the market right now, we're seeing a lot of downturn in the market right now i think because of that uncertainty. i think the cons of public pressure, the american people stepping forward and saying,

5:30:38 to 5:30:45( Edit History Discussion )

Steve Austria: enough is enough and being outraged about this, that we're finally starting to see a plan brought forward that we hope

5:30:46 to 5:31:06( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: problem that has been transpired as a result of this legislation. so i yield back my time to the gentleman from ohio. thank you for the opportunity to speak on this and thank you for bringing this issue forward. it's very important. mr. latta: i wan

5:30:50 to 5:34:55( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Steven C. LaTourette

5:31:07 to 5:31:27( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: mr. latourette: i want to thank the gentleman from ohio. it was such a lousy piece of legislation. if we take the fellow that you've just -- it might have been a woman, that you identified, got $6.4 million worth of bonuses, the democratic tax bill that used the tax code to punish people for the first time in at least my memory to that extent, my

5:31:28 to 5:31:49( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: person still got $640,000. why? why? they shouldn't have go money, they shouldn't have gotten any money. wh i promise, mr. speaker, that we would attempt to move forward and solve -- try to solve this mystery. it would be easier if somebody would just come forward and say

5:31:50 to 5:32:10( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: i did it. you know, i did it. i'm professor plum. i'm colonel muss tard and i did it but we don't have anybody that's been forth coming on capitol hill or down at the white hoe or at the

5:32:11 to 5:32:32( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: department of treasury except for mr. geithner and barney frank and the people that i mentioned that were not in the room when this happened. so with apologies to our friends from hasbro, we have sort of put this in the form of the game of clue which a lot of us played as we were growing up. we'd play with our kids and if you're not familiar with the game of clue, mr. speaker, basically it's a crime is committed and the junior detectives have to try to solve

5:32:33 to 5:32:54( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: the crime and the successful person, the winner, identifies where it happened, who did it and with the weapon. now, we start with a pretty good advantage here this evening. because we know what the weapon is. we know that somebody took out the language that would have prohibited these bonuses that were paid out and put in the

5:32:55 to 5:33:17( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: language that's over mr. tee berry's shoulder. we -- tiberi's soldier. we know it was done in writing. the weapon is a pen. so we're 1/3 of the way th and now we just need to figure out where it took place and by whom. and just to sort of go around with the whoms, we don't have colonel mustard, we don't have

5:33:18 to 5:33:39( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: ms. scarlet but we have people who are conferees or who made observations or news cot kths that we'll get into it in a minute -- news accounts that we'll get into in a minute indicate we're in the room. on the bottom right is charles rangel of new york. he was a conferee. he signed the conference report. next is ralm emanuel who is the president's chief of staff.

5:33:40 to 5:34:02( Edit History Discussion )

Steven C. LaTourette: used to serve with us here in the congress, representing a part of illinois in thunited states congress. at the top, the former president of harvard university, larry summers, who is now an economic advisor to president obama. at the top is senator d.o.d. now i have to say senator daud in a lot of early news accounts was blamed for it.