Continuing Extension Act of 2010

Floor Speech

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Mrs. BOXER. Madam President, I supported the motions to table the three Coburn amendments to the Continuing Extension Act of 2010.

These amendments would delay important legislation to provide a short term extension of unemployment and health care benefits to Americans who have lost their jobs through no fault of their own. This bill is critical to families that have bills to pay and are struggling to put food on the table.

Yesterday, I voted to table the Coburn amendment that would have rescinded $40 billion in unobligated funding. This amendment did not say where the cuts would be made. As the chairman of the Appropriations Committee explained, many important homeland security, national defense, and Veterans Administration priorities could have been drastically reduced or eliminated by this amendment. There is no telling how many jobs would have been lost had this amendment been adopted.

The two Coburn amendments considered today both include funding offsets that have already been included in a bill to create jobs and reduce taxes. This legislation, which has already passed the Senate and is pending in the House of Representatives, would also extend unemployment insurance and health care benefits until the end of the year. Adoption of the Coburn amendment today would jeopardize this critical bill.

Extending unemployment insurance and health benefits are an emergency for those who have lost their jobs. We should come together as a body and pass this bill as soon as possible.

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Mrs. BOXER. First, I want to say thank you so much for taking to the floor to explain to the American people the very strange debate we hear coming from the Republican leader on this. I was stunned, because I had heard that he had met with the Wall Street people and the banks, and then he said over and over again the same phrase yesterday, which was repeated endlessly, that the bill you and the President and the Democrats are working on--trying to get bipartisan support for, for which I commend you--he said that bill would mean one thing and one thing only--taxpayer bailouts--when we all know the entire purpose is to put an end to one dollar of loss of taxpayer bailouts. So I have a question to ask. Is it not my friend's goal to get into a situation where the banks, the super big banks, the investment houses, pay into a fund themselves with their own money, so that if there are any problems and they need to be wound down, it does not cost a dollar of taxpayer money, that the fund will be paid for by these businesses themselves? Am I correct on that?

Mr. DODD. Let me thank my dear friend and colleague from California. She says it so much more directly and clearly than my efforts here to explain this. She is absolutely correct. This is the irony of ironies.

In fact, let me go further. The $50 billion provision in this bill was proposed by the Republicans. I did not come up with this idea. This was the idea that was brought up by the community bankers and Republicans who said that if there is an unwinding of a failed institution, the American taxpayer should not have to pay a nickel for that; it should be paid for by the institutions that put themselves in that position.

That is what we did. In fact, in the other body, they have a stronger provision with even more dollars involved. The irony of ironies, that a Republican provision in this bill, designed to insulate the American taxpayers from having to pay a nickel to unwind a failed institution, they are now calling somehow evidence that this is a bailout.

The only reason that money can be used is to bail out, rather to unwind that institution, if it gets in that situation.

Mrs. BOXER. Further, my understanding is, if an institution gets in trouble, they are going to go down. They are not going to be revived.

Mr. DODD. Absolutely.

Mrs. BOXER. I would say to my friend, because he is an expert on this--and years ago I was on the Banking Committee, and am no longer there--I want to make sure I understand if I am right on this: I think the American people have appreciated the FDIC over the years, because the FDIC was another way for taxpayers to be kept out of a problem, because it is an insurance fund. The banks are taxed and they put the money into the fund. And if there is, in fact, a bankruptcy, you are covered. Right now I think it is up to $250,000. Am I correct?

Mr. DODD. Correct.

Mrs. BOXER. So this whole notion has worked very well. But in closing, because I do not want to interrupt the speech of my friend, because I think it is important, it seems to me suddenly there has been a huge injection of politics into a bill that should have had, as you point out, I say to my friend from Connecticut, bipartisan support.

If, in fact, the Republicans came up with the idea to have a fee on these institutions, to protect the taxpayers so that we have no bailouts, and now, after meeting with the banks, it feels to me these big institutions have turned on their own idea. But they are using the language that is the opposite of what they now want to do. Because, as I understand it--tell me if I am right--if we keep the status quo and do nothing, which is again their idea right now, we are in trouble, because we saw what happens when these big institutions get in trouble. Main Street starts to hurt. Lending starts to freeze. We have seen millions of job losses due to that horrible time we went through.

I want to commend my friend and urge him, if he has to come here every day--and I will be glad to come over here as well--to explain to the American people the truth. I am so tired of politics obscuring the truth. We need to put an end to it. We are not perfect. The other party is not perfect. No one is perfect. We do not have the ideas that are going to save and cure every problem. But we know one thing from this crisis. We had to turn to taxpayers. What a nightmare. Thank goodness, by the way, those funds are being repaid. We are still out some funds, but the vast majority of those funds are repaid. But we are not going to go through that again. I would never vote, and I say that right here, to bail out these big institutions that were gambling. They gambled on the future of America. I will not do it. Therefore, let's put something into place where they pay into a fund so if there is a problem in the future and they are going bust, we will wind them down and we will wind them out on their dollar.

I hope you will keep saying that, because I do not mind getting in a debate with the other side. As a matter of fact, I think there are great differences between the two parties, which makes our country great because we all appeal to different people in the country. It is good for the stability of the Nation. But let's not come here with false debate. Let's not come here with made-up arguments, because that only hurts the debate.

I wanted to praise my friend. I wanted to spend a couple of minutes thanking him for doing this.

Mr. DODD. I thank my colleague. I note, you only have to ask yourself--look, you do not have to have a Ph.D. in banking. Ask yourself this question: The idea of requiring these institutions to put up money in advance, so that if they fail they end up paying for the cost of unwinding----

Mrs. BOXER. Bingo.

Mr. DODD. Who would object to that? Who is objecting to this? I mentioned earlier, it was not my idea. This was brought to me by the Republicans. Sounds to me like the people who have to put up that money are probably the ones objecting to it. These are the large institutions that do not want to be assessed any cost associated with their mismanagement of an operation.

Mrs. BOXER. You got it.

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