John Garamendi: “Let's be very clear that those closed-door meetings were the leadership of the Republican Party sitting down with Wall…”

“Let's be very clear that those closed-door meetings were the leadership of the Republican Party sitting down with Wall Street and talking about how to preserve the present system that led to this great collapse. You said something that just ticked me off--not at you, but at the situation--and it's the Wall Street bonuses. At a time when hardworking men and women, more than 8 million Americans were losing their jobs as a result of the financial games of Wall Street, 8 million--in my district, tens of thousands of men and women that worked hard every single day to put bread on their table for their family, to keep their roof over their head lost their jobs because Wall Street was playing financial games, thinking of the financial market as some sort of gambling casino while my constituents were losing their houses, losing their jobs, forced to go on unemployment, losing their health insurance. What was going on, on Wall Street? Well, here it is: Wall Street was paying some of the highest salaries and bonuses ever in America's history. In 2007, before the collapse, look at that, $137 billion, $137 billion in pay and bonuses. During the great collapse in 2008, when 750,000 people were losing their job every month, Wall Street was paying its fat cats $123 billion. And then in 2009, using the recovery money, using our taxpayer money, what did Wall Street do? They paid themselves $145 billion.”