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Bunning Challenges Fed Authority To Bailout AIG
Introduces Bill To Strip Fed Of Powers
Washington, DC
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
U.S. Senator Jim Bunning today issued the following statement on the heels of the Fed bailout of American Insurance Group (AIG) that was announced last night. Bunning also introduced legislation to strip the Federal Reserve of the authority to use taxpayer dollars to bail out unregulated companies like AIG in the future.
"Once again the Fed has put the taxpayers on the hook for billions of dollars to bail out an institution that put greed ahead of responsibility and used their good name to take risky bets that did not pay off. The only difference between what the Fed did and what Hugo Chavez is doing in Venezuela is Chavez doesn’t put taxpayer dollars at risk when he takes over companies – he just takes them.
"Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke did the right thing by refusing to bail out Lehman Brothers over the weekend. Yet less than two days after drawing that line in the sand, Chairman Bernanke, with the full blessing of Secretary Paulson, announced the takeover of AIG. To say I am outraged by this would be an understatement. The greed on Wall Street is only exceeded by the stupidity of the Treasury Secretary and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve.
"I have said on more than one occasion that I don’t think the Federal Reserve can handle the powers they have and this irresponsible bailout just proves my point. As a result I have decided to do the Fed a favor and relieve them of some of their power by introducing a bill to take away their authority to make loans to non-banks, a power that prior to the bailout of Bear Stearns had not been used since the Great Depression."
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