Automobile Industry Crisis
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Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. LEVIN). Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mrs. McCASKILL. Mr. President, I know we have an important piece of legislation that we are going to vote on today. I desperately want to support that legislation. I wish to ask first and most importantly if anyone has the information as to whether the CEOs of Wells Fargo or Bank of America or Citigroup have taken private jets in the last month. Has anyone asked the CEOs of Citigroup, Wells Fargo--all of these financial companies--to take a cut in compensation? Has anyone asked about their workers and how much money they make and whether they are overpaid and whether they are competitive with the salaries of community bankers across the country?
Every one of the institutions I named has gotten $15 billion or more of taxpayer money. Think about that for a minute. Citigroup has gotten $50 billion. Have we checked on their private jets? Have we checked on their CEO compensation? Have we checked on their work rules and whether their workers are given enough flexibility?
It is unbelievable to me that we are setting this double standard. The thousands of jobs and families who build great American cars do not deserve this incredible hypocrisy in terms of the different treatment they are getting. What is good for the goose is good for the gander.
I say let's call in those CEOs of those big companies that have gotten more than $15 billion of our money and ask them when they are going to take a dollar in pay, ask them if they got here on a corporate jet, ask them if their workers have cut their pay to $14 an hour, ask them if they have talked about cutting their pension costs and their health care costs. Until we do that, we ought to be quiet about the American autoworkers, and we ought to be quiet about these companies that have reduced fixed costs, that have agreed to sell corporate jets, that have agreed to cut executive compensation.
I want to support this bill on behalf of manufacturing in the United States of America, on behalf of wonderful, hard-working families in Missouri. However, there is one problem that has arisen, and that is, unfortunately, in this bill right now, as written, is a provision to increase the pay of Federal judges. Wrong time, wrong place.
We have unemployment numbers today that show we have the highest unemployment in this country we have had in decades. We have families all over this Nation who are scared today, who are not buying Christmas presents. Federal judges get lifetime appointments and they never take a dime's cut in pay. They die with the same salary they have today. My phone is ringing off the hook from people who want to be Federal judges. I am having to have staff work overtime to handle all the phone calls I am getting from people who think there may be a Federal judgeship opening in the eastern district of Missouri and how badly accomplished, wonderful, smart lawyers want that Federal appointment.
We are not hurting for qualified applicants for the Federal judiciary. Is it fair that they have not gotten a cost-of-living increase like every other Federal employee? Probably not. But you know what is a lot more unfair is to give somebody with a lifetime appointment, great health care, no cut in pay when they actually retire, what is unfair is to give them a pay raise on this day in this bill at this time. It is not the right time. And if it is in the bill, I regrettably will have to vote against this legislation because I feel so strongly that it sends the wrong message to the United States of America at this scary moment in our economic history.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
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