Bonus Mystery
Floor Speech
BONUS MYSTERY -- (House of Representatives - March 19, 2009)
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Mr. FLEMING. I thank the gentleman from Ohio.
Mr. Speaker, just a few months ago, I was on the other side of C-SPAN. I was watching what was going on. I was only elected in December.
I come from North Louisiana, where people respect the institutions, and we are talking about two very big and very important institutions: AIG, which we know is too big to fail. That is the reason why we have been bailing AIG out. And then, of course, our Presidency and Congress itself.
I guess the rhetorical question I have after this embarrassment, which is, first of all, how did this screw-up happen? And, where is that person or persons who is willing to own up to the mistake that was made here?
But going back to the beginning. We remember that in the first TARP issue, money was of course dealt out very quickly, almost overnight, as a result of the need or perceived need for bailout, and we found that money was going to spas in California, and pheasant hunting in the U.K. That should have at least given us some warning that this kind of abuse would happen.
Then, we fast forward. We released the money again, no strings attached, and we find out that some kind of deal was struck, only with Democrats in the room, that first put in and of course then took out in conference, we think, this very important clause that would have avoided bonuses, very rich bonuses, over $1 million in some cases, to people who were part of the problem.
It really comes down to this: Is it incompetency, or is it dishonesty? I think that is the second question that we have to answer beyond who was involved in this. Certainly, we have the Secretary of the Treasury, who was approved under dubious conditions to begin with, having somehow forgotten to pay or perhaps incompetently did not pay his taxes. And then he was up to his hips in this whole situation with the bailout but somehow didn't realize that this clause would be put in and then somehow jerked out. Even the administration has more or less offered him up as a scapegoat by saying that they really didn't know really what was going on and that really happened on his watch. I certainly think first and foremost that Mr. Geithner should resign. I think he has done enough damage as it is.
Also today there was a disgrace in the House where we had rammed down our throats a stimulus bill which no Republican supported and which did not contain a protective measure that should have been in to avoid these disgraceful bonuses. It was released only hours before. And being, of course, over 1,000 pages, it was impossible for anyone on this side of the aisle to have any idea of what was in that bill, much less some small clause as this.
After all of that, hoping to gain that money back and perhaps some honor to this House, the Republican freshmen advanced a bill that would have put such strings attached to the $30 billion left in the bailout that would make it impossible for them to receive it without paying this back 100 percent. Instead, that bill never made it to the floor, and we had upon suspension another bill that was, honestly, a horrible bill, although it was the best bill we have to date, which only took back, through taxes, 90 percent of the money that was paid out in bonuses.
Of course, the question is, is this even constitutional? Is it constitutional to pass a bill that has pointed at a very small segment of the society to punish them and to do it on a retroactive basis? I'm not a lawyer. I don't know. But it would be very interesting to see what comes to light. I would also like to know what part our Speaker had in this. It just seems like that once light is thrown into a situation like this, all the leadership who is behind it blow out like a covey of quail.
So I ask today that perhaps we have investigations, perhaps we find the
folks who were really behind this. In any event, we need to avoid this from happening again. So in closing, I would say, Mr. Speaker, that the question is, is it incompetency or dishonesty? I certainly hope it is not the latter. And if it is incompetency, I think we need to renew some leadership positions and get us back to a competent pathway.
And with that, I yield back.
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