House Proceeding 03-18-09 on Mar 18th, 2009 :: 1:22:00 to 1:42:00
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1:19:20 to 1:22:00( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: John Yarmuth

1:21:48 to 1:22:00( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: and the size of corporations sometime in this country. i think the american people would appreciate that conversation because they don't see -- they don't like being in a position in which they are virtually helpless when a giant corporation which yields no

1:22:01 to 1:22:21( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: benefit to them that they perceive, anyway, is able to affect their lives so dramatically. .

1:22:05 to 1:24:25( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Bruce Braley

1:22:22 to 1:22:42( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: the floor of the house of representatives an exception to the rule which is there are too many companies that are too arrogant to save. this is an example what i'm talking about. i quoted this during the hearing on october 7, this is from a september 28, 2008, article of

1:22:43 to 1:23:03( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: "the new york times," and this was a comment made by the same joseph cassano who headed a.i.g.'s london office and who brought about this $11 billion first quarter loss that took them over the cliff. and here's what 'said. when asked to respond to this financial crisis.

1:23:04 to 1:23:25( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: he said, quote, it is hard for us, a.i.g., without being flip ant, to even see a scenario within any kind of realm of reason that would see us losing $1 in these circumstances. $1.

1:23:26 to 1:23:46( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: and then apparently he doesn't really have that, his math skills are somewhat lacking because he obviously earned a heck of a lot more than $1, $280 million over an eight-year period and that just shows the level of arrogance that these financial prognosticaters had. and i'd like to throw this

1:23:47 to 1:24:07( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: questionver to my friend from memphis. i mean, i remember when the fed was trying to have discussions about what type of financial oversight was appropriate for these new financial devices called mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps. then fed chairman alan

1:24:08 to 1:24:25( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: greenspan was a firm believer in just let the market regulate self and in fact that's what his recommendation was on credit default swaps. so then we saw this market grow to a $100 trillion-plus market

1:24:26 to 1:24:46( Edit History Discussion )

Stephen Cohen: with no oversight and we should be shocked that anybody would be surprised that we'd find ourselves in this predicament. >> thank you, sir. the f.c.c. has a new leader, mrs. mary schapiro, i believe is her name, and i believe she's going to provide the regulation that we need and the past administration, the f.c.c. was woefully understaffed and i

1:24:30 to 1:26:10( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Stephen Cohen

1:24:47 to 1:25:07( Edit History Discussion )

Stephen Cohen: think when there were whistle blowers they weren't listened to. i believe if i'm correct there was a whistle blower on the may doff ponzi scream and there was a ponzi scream that was through dallas, texas, and through my city of memphis, with a company that has taken a lot of people's investments, claimed they were putting in buying

1:25:08 to 1:25:29( Edit History Discussion )

Stephen Cohen: c.d.'s, an island in the caribbean, i think antigua and in fact they weren't doing it and a lot of people have lost all of their investments. a lot of people lost all of their investments with anyway doff and they weren't regulated. that's what the f.c.c. needs to do is have regulations on all these companies to make sure they're doing what they say

1:25:30 to 1:25:51( Edit History Discussion )

Stephen Cohen: they're doing and have whistle blowers. this can save money invested in these areas can save people in the long run. there are people who wished we had spent that money because they're not going to have their monies and if they don't have their monies the going to hurt the treasury as well because they're not going to have money for spending. that's part of what' these problems. i believe you're on financial

1:25:52 to 1:26:11( Edit History Discussion )

Stephen Cohen: services, are you not? mr. braley: no, that would be my friend, mr. klein. mrcohen: mr. klein mht be the right person to ask. a lot of people have talked about mark to market changes. i believe mr. kanjorski talked about that today and also on the up-tick rule. are these two changes that might come about soon and do you think they'll be helpful in

1:26:12 to 1:26:33( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Klein: having a more fair and just and realistic perspective on the valuations and on trading in the stock market? mr. klein: would the gentleman yield? mr. cohen: i yield. mr. klein: mr. cohen, a couple of the issues that are out there, some of these are fairly technical but they're very important actually. for those people in banks, those people in real estate, financial service issues, one

1:26:15 to 1:28:45( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Ron Klein

1:26:34 to 1:26:54( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Klein: of the things that all of our smal and the people that own homes, the people that own real estate properties, commercial properties, is the banks are not lending. i mean, enough. ther there. but -- but all i can tell you is that when we had the eight large banks in front of our committee two weeks ago we

1:26:55 to 1:27:15( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Klein: heard, oh, we're lending here and billions of dollars here and that may have been to fortune 100 compans and i understand that and that's fine but it was not translating down to our local communities. i know in west palm beach, in delroy beach where we do business and things like that at home, and the short answer is, what can we and should we be doing?

1:27:16 to 1:27:36( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Klein: the mark to marketing rule basically is is a way that the regulators look at the bank's balance sheet and say that a certain asset is a certain value. and that works just fine when properties are going up in value. the problem is, when there's really no market, when y can't sell a piece of property because nobody wants to buy it or nobody can finance it, it's

1:27:37 to 1:27:57( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Klein: a very -- they get written down to not necessarily zero, but something very insignificant and what that does is put lots of pressure, put lots of pressure on the banks and their balance sheet. then they say, we can't lend because our balance sheet looks so small. it's a chicken-egg thing between the regulators and the banks. to make a long story short there's common ground that

1:27:58 to 1:28:18( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Klein: needs to be found. it's not a question of the banks shouldn't be lending, they should and the regulators, may be being a little cautious themselves right now under the circumstances but there's a middle ground and i think we have to find it and get -- crank it up quickly. because whether it's mark to market or a few other regulatory issues, we want to make sure our regulators are doing their job. doesn't mean stopping lending.

1:28:19 to 1:28:39( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Klein: but there are a whole lot of credit-worthy borrowers out there that could borrow. i mean, many of you have small businesses that are making payments, real estate owners that are making payments that are current. but they're saying i can't get a term loan, even though i'm current because they're saying the asset value is so low. on a simple basis we need to find that middle ground. think this through carefully.

1:28:40 to 1:28:46( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Klein: lend to the appropriate people, don't lend to people that shouldn't be borrowing, you else. but do it the right way.

1:28:47 to 1:29:09( Edit History Discussion )

Stephen Cohen: so, yeah, we are working on that right now, mr. cohen, and hopefully in the next number of weeks ey're going to have answers and get the banks moving along again. mr. cohen: thank you, mr. klein. it's an issue that i'vheard from a lot of brokers about. they think it would help the stock market but they also think the uptick rule would require people to at least own some stock and to have a trade take place before they shorted

1:28:50 to 1:29:40( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Stephen Cohen

1:29:10 to 1:29:30( Edit History Discussion )

Stephen Cohen: it and basically win by the committee losing. that's not the -- economy losing. that's not the american way. it's happening so much on the stock market and the way the stock market people have manipulated the market. hedge fund have manipulated the market to run companies, destroy them and make money while they did it. that's where regulation is so important and we haven't had

1:29:31 to 1:29:40( Edit History Discussion )

Stephen Cohen: regulation in this previous administration. the market didn't work. the market needs regulating because if you let people go unchecked, greed comes into play.

1:29:41 to 1:30:01( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: and we've seen the utmost of greed. i think mr. braley was something that will take mr. braley: would my friend yield for a follow-up comment? a point you raised, it's an important economyment to the

1:29:45 to 1:31:40( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Bruce Braley

1:30:02 to 1:30:23( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: regulation -- compliment and that's the whistle blower protection. one thing mr. yarmuth and i had a key role in was passing out of our oversight committee the whistle blower protection enhancement bill of 2007 and it was an enormously overwhelming bipartisan bill. it passed on the floor of this house with over 330 votes, w

1:30:24 to 1:30:44( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: naming a post office, that's doing pretty good down here. unfortunately it ran into obstacles inhe senate and did not get to the president's desk in the 110th congress. and then someone, well, it was congressman chris van hollen who is a democrat and congressman todd platts from pennsylvania who is a republican had the brilliant

1:30:45 to 1:31:06( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: idea when we were putting together some of this financial recovery legislation in the stimulus bill, let's put the whistle blower bill back in. we're putting a lot of money out there into the economy. we want to provide protection to federal employees, to report instances of waste, fraud and abuse and it passed ov to the senate and one senator

1:31:07 to 1:31:27( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: decided that that was not appropriate and it came out of the bill. and i think the american taxpayers are fed up with the lack of accountability. they want people to be protected. when they have the courage to put their lives and their careers on the line and stand up for the american taxpayers. and that's why we had a press conference last week to re-introduce the bill as a

1:31:28 to 1:31:41( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: stand-alone bill. i hope we quickly get it over to the senate and i hope this time the senate understands that the american people are outraged. they want us to be on their side to protect their hard-earned dollars and i think

1:31:42 to 1:32:02( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: this is a crical component we need to push and with that i'll yield to mr. yarmuth. mr. yarmuth: i thank my colleague and, you know, one of the things that we have to continue to do is to remind the american taxpayer what's happened, what broug this point.

1:31:45 to 1:35:20( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: John Yarmuth

1:32:03 to 1:32:25( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: and i know that right now our colleagues on the other side are trying to play political games and all of a sudden because of this new revelation about bonuses, they want to make this all a democratic problem. but as all of us will recall and i think the american citizens will recall, we were

1:32:26 to 1:32:46( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: cruising along last year knowing that we were in a little bit of financial difficulty. we knew that the foreclosures were up, we knew that the signs of the economy were not where we would like them to be. those of white house had been in the trenches politically since 2006 knew a lot of americans had been hurting for a long time, particularly middle class americans and

1:32:47 to 1:33:08( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: hardworking families out there. but all of a sudden last september, out of the blue, seemingly, secretary paulson, chairman bernanke, call us all in and say, the sky is falling and we're about to go over the cliff and we need $700 billion to bail t these companies

1:33:09 to 1:33:29( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: that are in severe difficulty. and i think the american people rightly were stunned saying, where did this come from? i think all of us were stunned because we didn't know where it came from. and what we have found out subsequently is that in many of these operations, like a.i.g., sometimes the c.e.o.'s didn't

1:33:30 to 1:33:50( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: really know the depths of their problems. and i know we had hearings again in the oversight committee last congress where we talked to, for instance, -- for instance, the rating agencies and some of the people who were involved in the measurement of rk and the analysis of risk and even chairman greenspan who said we

1:33:51 to 1:34:13( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: had no way of assessing risk that involved declining real estate values. and all of the models they had built to assess the risk, whether it was moodie's or any of the rating agencies or in this case the fed, said, our computer models wouldn't accept negative growth in real estate.

1:34:14 to 1:34:34( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: so all of a sudden the american peopleay, whoa, where did this all come from? i think none of us really knew where it came from and the reason we didn't know is because we had trusted the marketplace to be the salvation of our financial system. and as we've seen, the marketplace, that chairman

1:34:35 to 1:34:55( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: greenspan worshiped and others, wanot capable of accounting for what happened in the real world. so now we're cleaning up, we're trying to pick up the pieces. the american people are rightly dismayed that their government was not on the job and we have an opportunity now to show the american people that they can

1:34:56 to 1:35:17( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: have confidence, not just in the economy, but also in their government. and that's a charge that i think all of us willingly accept. so i'm very happy to be here tonight to talk about that and to be a part of a congress that is responding to a crisis that basically we didn't build, we didn't create, but we are more

1:35:18 to 1:35:20( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: than willing to try to fix. because we owe thato the

1:35:21 to 1:35:41( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Klein: american taxpayer. and with that, i'd yield back to my colleague from florida. mr. klein: i thank the gentleman. i think you've summed it up exactly right. and that is, the american people want answers. they want to make sure this doesn't happen again. it's unacceptable for there to be cycles where this happens and you clean up and it happens again.

1:35:25 to 1:37:35( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Ron Klein

1:35:42 to 1:36:03( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Klein: i mean, this is, you know, a very significant time for everyone. and the challenge is great. and so we are going to have to focus on it and if i can, i'll just spend one last minute refereing the fact that we're now moving into the conversation about our budget for next year. but talking about the kinds of things the american people are looking for, it's transparency and openness when we have a budget.

1:36:04 to 1:36:24( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Klein: and the last mber of years of which this group here has only been here two years but the wars, wh appreciate the work that our military did and all the rest of that, but $100 billion some for the last number of year, not even on the books of the balance sheet of the federal government, every year it's a supplemental budget. supplemental budget is supposed

1:36:25 to 1:36:46( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Klein: to be when you have an emergency. god forbid you have a katrina or something like that that you didn't plan for. the war was ere, it should have been planned for and accounted for. when you talk about a balanced budget and here today, we're fi deficit people. we're deaf he sit hawks. we believe in -- we're deficit hawks. we believe in it. the republicans didn't do it,

1:36:47 to 1:37:07( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Klein: democrats didn't do it in the past but all of us together have got to get it right now and the goin we inherited an unfortunate budget and it's gog to take time to get through this. mr. spratt who works with us, president obama's got a lot of ideas, we're going to put them through the mix here and i think we something, but most importantly, it's an honest, open conversation. the american people are smart

1:37:08 to 1:37:29( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Klein: people. they understand the process of building a budget. they do it for themselves every day. and i look forward to the opportunity of working with republicans, or maybe differences of opinions in priorities. i happen to believe that education and health care and energy, making this country energy independent is a very forward-thinking way of addressing the next generation

1:37:30 to 1:37:35( Edit History Discussion )

Ron Klein: of where we need to be but we'll get through that process but the point of it is an honest, open process where the american people can understand

1:37:36 to 1:37:51( Edit History Discussion )

John Yarmuth: all the debts, all the possibilities, all the opportunities to buila stronger country. i'll turn it back over to the gentleman from kentucky.?b

1:37:40 to 1:37:50( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: John Yarmuth

1:37:52 to 1:38:12( Edit History Discussion )

Stephen Cohen: >> we only have a couple of minutes left. i think this conversation has been a good one and i'm glad that they joined us for it. i yield briefly to my colleague from memphis. >> i just join with my colleagues in saying how good it is to have the opportunity to clean up this mess.

1:37:55 to 1:38:20( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Stephen Cohen

1:38:13 to 1:38:20( Edit History Discussion )

Stephen Cohen: president bush is to be commended for saying he hope this is president succeeds he puts his country before his party.

1:38:21 to 1:38:42( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: i hope his colleagues and members of his party will listen to him, not his vice president before it should have been broken. with that i yield to the gentleman from iowa. >> the concluding remarks i want to offer to the american people, a.i.g. is now the symbol of

1:38:25 to 1:39:35( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Bruce Braley

1:38:43 to 1:39:05( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: arrogance inspires greed. the other thing is american people expect us to provide justice with superior firepower. we've got a lot of intellectual firepower on both sides of the aisle, we've got a lot of creative people with experience, my colleague's reference about cleaning up, i did a lot of time

1:39:06 to 1:39:27( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: doing janitorial work putting myself through college and law school. i'm excited to be here at this point in t we need bright, creative people with critical thinking skills and together we'll solve this problem. >> i thank my colleagues. i look forward to our conversations next week, next wednesday, and as we go through the year it's a great honor for

1:39:28 to 1:39:39( Edit History Discussion )

Bruce Braley: me to serve with so many thoughtful, dedicated representatives and with that, mr. speaker, i yield back

1:39:40 to 1:40:01( Edit History Discussion )

balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 6, 2009, the chair recognizes the gentleman from pennsylvania -- missouri, excuse me. i couldn't tell which microphone you were going to.

1:40:02 to 1:40:22( Edit History Discussion )

for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader. >> thank you, mr. speaker. we have a number of interesting topics we're talking about tonight. even a little bit of a challenge question for people feeling imaginative and innovative, it's a strategic question about some votes coming up tomorrow on the floor.

1:40:23 to 1:40:44( Edit History Discussion )

it should be interesting, but joining us first off this evening is my good friend, congressman pitts, who hails from pennsylvania and has come up with quite a barrage of different colorful charts here. i don't know if it looks like somebody's -- some part of a

1:40:45 to 1:41:06( Edit History Discussion )

Joseph R. Pitts: critical measurement of somebody's life expectancy, so i'm going to yield time to congressman pitts who has been a congressman for a long time, highly respect ared, from pennsylvania. so gentleman, i yield you time and i'd like you to tell us a little bit about what you've graphed here, because they're quite interesting. mr. pitts: thank you, mr.

1:41:05 to 1:42:20( Edit History Discussion )
Speech By: Joseph R. Pitts

1:41:07 to 1:41:28( Edit History Discussion )

Joseph R. Pitts: for yielding. there is an old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. i think sometimes, mr. speaker, pictures help explain some otherwise complicated situations. so i've assembled some data about the economy and vernment spending and put them on charts

1:41:29 to 1:41:49( Edit History Discussion )

Joseph R. Pitts: to help explain some of the facts. and i think the overall emphasis is that there are economic consequences to what we do and what we say here in congress. there are economic consequences to our taxation and spending, our budget policies. and i'd just like

1:41:50 to 1:42:11( Edit History Discussion )

Joseph R. Pitts: explain some of the colors on the chart and go through them. on the chart you see red and blue and lines, the colors here indicate which party is in control of congress. so where you have red, you have