Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise to speak on an amendment I submitted, amendment No. 3736. This amendment I know has caused some concerns in different places, both in the political process and in the financial sector. I believe it is a very fair, carefully drawn amendment. It is a fulfillment of a promise I made when I voted in favor of the TARP funding on October 1, 2008, when I stated I would do everything I could to make sure, first of all, that we look at appropriate executive compensation issues; second, that we would work to reregulate the financial sector, which we are doing in this bill, thankfully; and third, we would invest the American taxpayers in the upside of the economy when it started to come back because it was the American taxpayers' funding of rebuilding our economy that made this happen, not the funding of the banking system. This amendment simply says that if you received $5 billion or more from TARP and if you are a couple of other companies, such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, that received significant Federal funding in this bailout, any compensation you received in 2009 that is above your basic compensation and above an initial $400,000 bonus should be shared with the taxpayers who made this possible. This is not a clawback. It is not retroactive. It is moneys earned in 2009 which were paid out in 2010. It is not ongoing. It is a one-shot proposition. It affects only 13 companies.…”