Barney Frank: “I now want to go back and make my central point, which is that the only reason this has any impact on the taxpayer is…”

“I now want to go back and make my central point, which is that the only reason this has any impact on the taxpayer is that the Republicans insisted on protecting the large institutions. The gentleman from Alabama said all this money is going to the large institutions. Well, that's not true, because it does go to pay off loans to keep people from being foreclosed. Some will go to smaller institutions. Some will go to credit unions. Some will go to community banks. But here is the point: under our proposal, which the Republicans temporarily blocked--and I hope they'll repent--all of the funding would have come from the large institutions, but the Members don't want to address that. Under our proposal in the bill that passed--and we had to amend it, and we're going to try and come back and change it again--every single penny that will be expended here will come from institutions of more than $50 billion in assets and hedge funds of more than $10 billion in assets.”