LaTourette Opposes $700 Billion Bailout

Press Release

U.S. Rep. Steven C. LaTourette (R-Bainbridge Township) today voted against a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street, saying the price tag is too large for taxpayers and "the people who made the mess should clean up the mess."

The measure failed by a vote of 205-228.

LaTourette said the bill before Congress today was better than the one initially proposed by the Administration, citing improvements in curbs on executive pay, greater oversight and having Wall Street pay insurance premiums. Still, he said it lacked market reforms that he believes could have dropped the price tag from $700 billion to $100 billion.

"We raised the bar and improved the bill, but it's still a $700 billion bailout and the fundamentals are largely the same," LaTourette said.

LaTourette said punitive mark-to-market accounting rules have caused bank assets to tumble by $500 billion and have made $5 trillion unavailable for credit. Those rules should have been relaxed in the bill, he said, to immediately free up credit. In addition, LaTourette also said the bill should have doubled the amount of deposits insured by the FDIC, from $100,000 to $200,000.

LaTourette said the bill also should have permitted U.S companies doing business overseas to pour private capital into the market and absorb the toxic mortgage-back securities. He said those companies should have been granted a tax break if they agreed to hold the assets for several years. He said a few years ago when a repatriation of offshore funds was allowed more than $350 billion poured into U.S. markets.

"I'd rather have rich guys in three piece suits buy up this bad mortgage debt and get a tax break for doing so than have taxpayers foot the bill," LaTourette said.

LaTourette said he agrees that something must be done, but said the $700 billion bailout bill is just too expensive and at its core lets the "bad apples off the hook."

"Something is askew when we give the people who got us into this mess hundreds of billions of dollars to navigate their way out. I don't think they deserve a taxpayer financed do-over," he said.

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