Bill Delahunt: “Mr. Speaker, two amendments rejected by the Committee on Rules which I had hoped to offer illustrate the double…”

“Mr. Speaker, two amendments rejected by the Committee on Rules which I had hoped to offer illustrate the double standards represented by this bill because wealthy debtors with their lawyers and financial advisors can continue to game the system, and corporate insiders who have managed healthy businesses into bankruptcy can still be awarded with golden parachutes. Meanwhile, people of modest means will be denied a genuine fresh start, and retirees whose pensions and life savings have been wiped out by corporate bankruptcies will get little relief. My first amendment would have placed reasonable limits on exorbitant retention bonuses, obscene severance packages, and other outlandish payments to corporate insiders whose companies are bankrupt or insolvent; and the amendment would have reserved those assets for the benefit of employees, retirees, and other creditors. In the State of Massachusetts, Polaroid executives canceled their retirees' health coverage days before filing for bankruptcy and then terminated workers on long-term disability when the company reorganized. At the same time they awarded themselves more than $5 million in various bonuses and incentive payments shortly before filing for bankruptcy and then another $6 million in so-called retention bonuses afterwards.”