Political Quotes

“Last week, Americans were horrified to hear the news that Citigroup and other companies receiving taxpayer money from the Troubled Asset Relief Program were paying their employees billions and billions of dollars in bonuses. Today, along with Senator Olympia Snowe, our colleague from Maine, I will offer a bipartisan amendment to this legislation that makes it clear it is not enough to say these Wall Street bonuses are wrong; they have to be paid back. Taxpayers must be protected, and that is what the amendment Senator Snowe and I are offering will do. Our proposal gives the institutions that received Troubled Asset Relief Program money and paid these outlandish bonuses a simple choice: The institutions will pay back the cash portion of any bonus paid in excess of $100,000 within 120 days of the amendment's enactment or those institutions would face an excise tax of 35 percent on what is not repaid to the Treasury.”