Congressional Budget For The United States Government For Fiscal Year 2010
Floor Speech
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Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, the American people are outraged by the greed, the recklessness, and the illegal behavior they have seen from the masters of the universe on Wall Street, who, through their outrageous behavior, these financial tycoons, many of whom have earned hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions of dollars in their career, have plunged our country and much of the world into a deep recession which has cost our people millions of jobs, which has cost people their homes, which has cost people their savings, and which has led millions of Americans to wonder what kind of future their kids are going to have.
All of this is not the result of an act of nature, it is the result of very definitive actions by a small number of people on Wall Street who have shown outrageous greed in their behavior. It goes without saying that we need a major investigation to understand how we got into this disaster, and what we are going to do to get out of it, and whom we are going to hold accountable.
It goes without saying that we need to begin the process of reregulating Wall Street, bringing back Glass-Steagall, and making sure our taxpayers will never again be put in this position of having to bail out the greed on Wall Street. It goes without saying that we have got to address the issue of too big to fail, in my view--and I have said this many times--if an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist, and we begin should begin right now in starting the breakup of these mammoth financial institutions whose failure would cause systemic damage to our entire economy.
It goes without saying that we have got to do more than worry about Wall Street, we have got to start worrying about Main Street and the middle class of this country. We need to pass strong mortgage reform legislation, as well as legislation to protect the American people, who are paying outrageously high interest rates on their credit cards.
In that regard, I have introduced legislation, and hope to get it to the floor of the Senate before too long, which would put a cap of 15 percent on the interest rates any credit card holder in this country would be charged.
But those issues dealing with Wall Street and many more will have to wait for another day. Today, I am offering, along with Senators Feingold and Webb, a very simple, what I believe is a noncontroversial amendment, which I hope will have the support of every Member of this body.
As you well know, the Congress voted to provide $700 billion in so-called TARP funds to help bail out some of the major financial institutions in our country. I happen to have voted against that bailout. But what is very clear is that every penny of that TARP bailout money is now public.
As part of that bailout legislation, what was mandated is that every financial institution that received 1 penny of the taxpayers' money would be listed on the Treasury Department Web site. And if any American wants to know where that $700 billion went, they can account for every nickel of that. That is the way it should be.
On the other hand, what many people do not know is that the TARP funds, that $700 billion, were only one part of the bailout. What many people do not know is that the Federal Reserve has lent out over $2 trillion to a number of financial institutions. But if you were to ask me or any Member of the Senate, any Member of Congress, any American, who received that money, what they will tell you is: We do not know. Over $2 trillion of taxpayer money has been placed at risk, but the American people do not know who received those funds, and what the exact contractual arrangements were.
Anybody who believes in the concept of good government, anybody who believes in transparency, understands that is wrong, that is unacceptable, and that has got to change.
Earlier this month, I had an opportunity to ask Ben Bernanke, who is the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, about this issue when he testified before the Budget Committee, of which I am a member.
At that hearing, Chairman Bernanke told the Budget Committee that since the start of the financial crisis, the Fed has provided loans to ``hundreds and hundreds of banks.'' But Mr. Bernanke declined to name any of those banks, how much assistance they were provided, or what, in fact, those banks are doing with the money that taxpayers gave them.
What the Federal Reserve needs to understand is that this money does not belong to them, it belongs to the American people, and the American people have a right to know who the Fed is lending taxpayer money to, how much they are getting, and what the Fed is asking in return for this money. I cannot imagine anything that is more obvious, more common sense. How can you put $2.2 trillion of taxpayer money at risk and not know who is receiving that money? I think back now to the financial forms that Members of Congress have to fill out. People want to know, are we in a conflict of interest. We fill out those forms, they are made public. Our staff members fill out those forms. In many instances, when people are applying for Federal aid, they are forced to make public what they are asking for and how much. Some years ago, small farmers in the State of Vermont received some help from the Federal Government as part of the MILC program, if I recall correctly there. It was right in the newspaper, every nickel the struggling farmers were getting. Some of these farmers make $20,000, $25,000 a year. Some of them are on food stamps. It was, $8,399 goes to this farmer and that farmer. They were not happy about it. That is what the process was.
So it seems to me that if small farmers in Vermont are going to see what they get from the Federal Government and hope to keep small farms alive in this country, I think that multibillion dollar financial institutions should also be asked to have what they received made public as well.
The amendment I am offering today is a pretty simple one. It amends an amendment I offered. It was submitted in the Budget Committee. Specifically this amendment calls for increased transparency, including names, which institutions received assistance from the Fed, how much money they received, and what they are doing with this assistance.
I sincerely believe that is not an issue of left versus right. In fact, some of the strongest supporters of this concept are very conservative people such as Ron Paul, a colleague of mine in the House--a former colleague--who supports this type of approach. A number of Republicans have spoken for increased transparency, as well as progressives.
That is the issue. It is as simple and as clear as it can possibly be, that if taxpayers are going to be placed at risk by providing trillions of dollars in loans to large financial institutions, the American people have a right to know who is receiving that money, and what the terms are.
This amendment, once again, is supported by Senator Feingold and Senator Webb. I ask my colleagues to support this amendment.
I yield the floor.
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Mr. SANDERS. The Dodd-Shelby amendment is a very good step forward in terms of long-overdue transparency of the Fed. I compliment both Senators for their effort, and I support their amendment.
Unfortunately, this amendment, as Senator Dodd has just told us, does not go far enough. The bottom line is that the Fed has lent out some $2.2 trillion, and the American people and the Members of Congress do not know which financial institutions have received that money or what the exact terms of those transactions are. I think it is basically absurd that $2.2 trillion is at risk without us knowing who has received that money.
I support the Dodd-Shelby amendment, and in a moment I will ask for support for the Sanders-Feingold-Webb amendment as well.
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Mr. SANDERS. The taxpayers of this country, through the Fed, have lent $2.2 trillion to a number of financial institutions. We do not know who these institutions are or what they received. This is totally absurd. We need to name the names. That is what this amendment is about.
I yield to Senator Bunning.
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Mr. SANDERS. Madam President, this amendment, No. 811, would simply establish a deficit-neutral reserve fund to establish a national usury law. Establishing a national usury law is not a radical concept. About half the States in our country have usury laws now, capping interest rates on their books. Unfortunately, the State usury laws were made meaningless by a 1978 Supreme Court decision that allowed national banks to charge whatever interest rates they wanted if they move to States without an interest rate cap.
The bottom line is people all over this country are tired of bailing out banks and then paying 25 or 30 percent interest rates on their credit cards. That is wrong. We need a national usury rate, and this amendment would begin the process of establishing one.
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