Chris Dodd: “The $50 billion provision in this bill was proposed by the Republicans. I did not come up with this idea. This was the…”

“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.”