Ron Wyden: “I rise to say a word or two about our good friend Senator Corzine, who will be leaving the Senate to assume the…”

“I rise to say a word or two about our good friend Senator Corzine, who will be leaving the Senate to assume the governorship of New Jersey. What I would like to do--because I have heard a lot about Senator Corzine and his background in Illinois today--is to talk about when I saw him in action for the first time. It was when the Senate was working on the post 9/11 airline relief legislation. A lot of us were very troubled about how that ought to be done. We were sympathetic to the needs of the airlines after 9/11 but concerned about the very large sums of money that were going to be directed to one sector of our economy when many of our important economic sectors were hurt after 9/ 11; in that period when our country suffered tragically in New York but where there were economic ramifications across the country. That legislation would not have passed if Senator Corzine, along with help from our former colleague, Senator Fitzgerald, had not stepped in and figured out how to deal with the financing in a responsible way that protected taxpayers while providing some help to the airlines. Senator Corzine took out a sharp pencil, using the expertise he had acquired in his years at Goldman Sachs and throughout his training in finance, and figured out how to make sure there was not a bailout in effect for just one sector that would have taxpayers holding the bag and was sensitive to the needs of all concerned.…”