much for your moral leadership. i have a small business question. another monstrosity that came out of the pre-2010 congress was the dodd-frank bill. that didn't get as much negative publicity as obamacare but it's still a big deal. can you please speak to what you would do in a romney administration to encourage either a repeal of that law or modification of that law? >> well, let me share with you first coburn's rule of bureaucracy. bureaucracies never do what's best for the country or those they serve when they can do what is safe for them. dodd-frank's built on the premise that we can regulate every error, every wrong motive

out of the financial system, and you can't. milton friedman at one time had an interaction with -- i'm skipping his name, from chicago, the radio and tv talk show -- phil donahue. and he asked him comparing the free enterprise system to all the other systems, free enterprise system isn't perfect but there's nothing that compares with it, and what liberals do to us is they say see, it didn't work, but they never look at the 98% of it that does work, and when we try to control everything with a bureaucracy and regulation, we can control it and people will still cheat. people will still get around it.

but we have caused opportunity that gets filtered and magnified in an exponential fashion throughout the economy so what needs to happen is there needs to be transparent regulation in every area that puts our nation at risk but it needs to be based on common sense, not political drive. it needs to be based on things that actually work rather than things that are theoretical, and number three is it needs to be able to be anticipated. what would the common man and what is the cost benefit, because what's happening right now in our banking industry, one of the reasons we're not growing is our small and medium size banks are so tied up in knots from both dodd-frank and fdic new rules that we're seeing about a half a point a year less in gdp because of it. i would start all over. and i'm on a bill to eliminate dodd-frank and start all over.

>> live now to capitol hill, just getting under way, a house oversight and government reform subcommittee on t.a.r.p. they're having a hearing this morning focusing on the auto bailout and the automotive task force cooperation with the special inspector general for t.a.r.p. they did an audit regarding the delphi pensions decision. we see the chairman, representative mchenry, from north carolina in the chair. live coverage under way on c-span 3. >> this hearing is entitled administration's auto bailouts and the delphi pension decisions, who picks the winners and the losers. we have a distinguished panel before us today. but it is always the order of this subcommittee by reading the oversight and government reform committee's mission statement. the oversight committee mission statement, we exist to secure two fundamental principles. first, americans have a right to know that the money washington takes from them is well spent and second, americans deserve an

efficient, effective government that works for them. our duty on the oversight and government reform committee is to protect these rights. our solemn responsibility is to hold government accountable to taxpayers because taxpayers have a right to know what they get from their government. we will work tirelessly in partnership with citizen watchdogs to deliver the facts to the american people and bring genuine reform to the federal bureaucracy. and that is what this hearing is about, the auto bailout decision and the winners and the losers that resulted from this. we have a distinguished panel here today. i'll begin by recognizing myself for five minutes. today's hearing is about the transparency in government and fulfilling this committee's commitment to provide the american people with answers and accountability. when congress passed the troubled asset relief program known as t.a.r.p. or the bailouts, in october of 2008 at

the height of the financial crisis, it was designed with a specific purpose, to take toxic assets off the books of large banks and financial institutions. while today's intention is not to relitigate t.a.r.p. or the bailouts, it is important to discuss their consequences and indeed, there are consequences. when the government orchestrates a bailout, it is clear that there will be both winners and losers. while some of my colleagues will spend a great deal of time talking about bailout winners, it is unlikely that you'll hear them spend much time talking about the bailout losers. although their losses were significant, we're not here to discuss bond holders who took a haircut in the auto bailout. we're here today to focus on non-unionized retirees at delphi who watched part of their

pensions disappear while some of their co-workers were made whole. those co-workers whose pensions were left intact were members of the united auto workers union and they are clear winners of the auto bailouts. a recent study from one of today's witnesses, george mason university law professor, calculated that united auto workers received approximately $26 billion from taxpayers via the auto bailouts that they would not have received had they been treated according to standard bankruptcy principles. mr. zawicki is a witness here today. we look forward to hearing from him. when the pension benefit guarantee corporation terminated the pensions of all retirees, general motors agreed to top off or make whole their obligations to unionized workers. at the same time, the non-unionized workers took

significant cuts in their pensions. despite the fact that gm's promise to the union could have been thrown out by bankruptcy like so many of gm's other non-unionized commitments were, the union agreement was kept in place. that was a decision made by the government. the special inspector general for the troubled asset relief program has been seeking answers to questions about the irregularities of the delphi pension decisions. mr. romero is a witness here today as the special inspector general for t.a.r.p. we're here today because for over a year, three of the key figures involved in the gm and chrysler bailouts have refused to meet with the special inspector general. i'm grateful they showed today and i'm willing -- we're very interested in hearing their testimony and the reasons for not meeting with the special

inspector general. on may 9th, the special inspector general notified the committee that three former obama administration officials before us today, mr. bloom, mr. feldman and mr. wilson, had been uncooperative with the special inspector general's audit. these three individuals come from diverse backgrounds and possess different expertise, but together, represent leading figures from president obama's auto task force. all three of these individuals made pivotal decisions which are projected to cost taxpayers $23 billion and have left many delphi retirees with drastically reduced pensions while preserving full pensions for delphi's unionized retirees. these are the consequences of the bailouts. so with that, i would recognize the ranking member, mr. quigley of illinois, for five minutes and following that, i will recognize mr. turner from ohio

for five minutes for an opening statement and if the gentleman would like five additional minutes, we would be willing to grant that. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i appreciate that. i'm sure it won't be necessary in today's case. i want to thank the chairman for holding this hearing. no one understands or appreciates the importance of transparency and strong oversight in government more than members of this committee. congress created the office of special inspector general for the troubled asset relief program, t.a.r.p., and members of congress asked t.a.r.p. to perform its delphi audit. unfortunately, the audit has been stalled because they have not been able to interview three of the witnesses here today, ron bloom, matt feldman and harry wilson, who are all former members of the administration's auto task force. in preparation for this hearing, the democratic staff spoke with all three individuals and discovered they are willing to be interviewed. this is a positive development

and i am glad that the audit will now be completed. the audit should complement the thorough work gao has already completed on the delphi pension issue. gao published its findings on delphi pensions in december of 2011. the gao concluded that quote, treasury deferred to gm's business judgment and that treasury did not explicitly approve or disapprove of gm providing top-ups, end of quote. those are conclusions supported by the evidence gathered by gao. today, i'm looking forward to hearing an update on the progress of the audit and i will be eager to read the final report upon completion. but the most important conclusion that should be drawn from the auto task force actions is that they helped save more than a million american jobs. as president obama recently said, i was betting on the american worker and i was betting on american industry,

and three years later, the american auto industry is coming roaring back. thank you, mr. chairman. one second. okay. thank you. i yield back. >> i thank the ranking member. i do want to -- in the ranking member's opening statement, he suggested what we received in an e-mail at 5:46 yesterday from the minority staff that you have a commitment from the three auto bailout task force members today, that they will meet and fulfill that request that's been longstanding with them and i thank the ranking member for getting those commitments and i thank the staffer for getting those commitments because it has been almost -- it's been well over a year in the works of

trying to get mr. bloom, mr. feldman and mr. wilson to submit themselves for depositions, and with that, i would like to enter into the record the timeline of interview requests beginning in may 5th of 2011 and going through may 16th of 2012, including an e-mail we received last night at 9:40 p.m. from sig-t.a.r.p. explaining that the three witnesses in question had no communications of any sort indicating that they will make themselves available for their requested interviews in conjunction with our audit. i do appreciate, without objection, those two documents will be entered into the record. again, this is bipartisan work and i appreciate the willingness of mr. quigley, of you and

minority staff and counsel, to get those commitments, so we're hopeful that transparency is served from that and i know the gentleman's been very active on those issues of transparency in government. thank you. with that, i will recognize mr. turner of ohio, who has been a leader on the subject matter of this hearing, for five minutes for the purposes of an opening statement. >> thank you, mr. chairman. i would like to thank you and chairman issa and of course, chairman jordan for the work that has been done on this issue and for holding this important hearing today. today's hearing continues our efforts to uncover why the treasury department, the auto task force and the pension benefit guarantee corporation chose to terminate the president said recently on one

of his campaign stops that these retirees are doing fine, they're not doing fine. thousands of retirees lost their pensions, many of which are in my community in dayton, ohio, as a result of the administration's decisions during the auto bailout. appearing on cnn this sunday, white house chief of staff proclaimed this administration is the most transparent ever. not on this issue. we're going to find out why today. understandably i have serious concerns about how this administration, including the three members of the auto task force we have before us have continued to stonewall, provided silence on these issues and repeated failures to disclose information that are critical to the issues that have affected almost 20,000 people across the country, and that was done with taxpayers' dollars. this is not a venture that was undertaken with your own money. it was undertaken with tax payers' money and the openness that this administration promised needs to be enforced. in part we are here today because the three former auto task force members refuse to meet with, speak to or testify before the special inspector general for the t.a.r.p. program. it is my hope we will shed light

on who at the administration made the decision to cut the hard-earned retirement benefits of these delphi salaried retirees and that perhaps the administration's policy of denying access to this information hiding behind back room deals stops. i want to thank miss romero and sig-t.a.r.p. for being here today and your honesty in your letter. you wrote us a letter that said that sig-t.a.r.p. believes the auto task force played a role in the pension decision, these individuals' failure to speak to sig-t.a.r.p. on this issue poses a significant obstacle to sig-t.a.r.p.'s ability to complete this audit, and then you acknowledge that you didn't have an ability to subpoena these three gentlemen to make them testify. you also acknowledge in your written testimony that you commenced this as a result of several members of congress, including myself, asking you to undertake the audit to get questions answered about how this process went forward. mr. bloom, mr. feldman, mr. wilson, on the happy train of

silence and refusing to answer questions ends today. you have been summoned before congress because of your refusal to answer sig-t.a.r.p.'s questions because they didn't have the ability to compel you. you are here today because you know we do. you didn't come here because you believed you wanted to share information with congress. you were brought here because of your refusal to share the information that the american public is entitled to hear as a result of taxpayers' dollars that were used in the auto bailout of general motors and thousands of people that lost their pensions. there's an accountability here. now, you're going to take an oath when you testify today. this is not a political proceeding. this is a legal proceeding. you will be testifying. you will not be giving speeches. that's why you're sworn in. it's called testifying before congress. in that, i want you to rise to the level of understanding what that obligation is. it means that if you don't speak

truthfully in front of us, that obviously you can be subject to perjury, disbarment or other types of consequences because congress takes people appearing before us seriously. now, we're hearing and we're looking forward to hearing from you that you are now willing to cooperate and i want you to also be aware that if during that process of supposedly cooperating with sig-t.a.r.p., we have the ability to continue to enforce it. we have the ability to bring you in for depositions, under oath. bring you back before congress again. if the information you provide is not complete and is not thorough, you will continue to have your happy train of silence met here with congress where the american people require answers because you served in a public position with public dollars and public obligations and today we're going to have public questions. thank you, mr. chairman. >> i thank the gentleman from ohio. members will have seven days to submit opening statements for the record and we will now

recognize our panel of witnesses today. the honorable christie romero is special inspector general for the troubled asset relief program, united states department of treasury. mr. ron bloom, mr. matthew feldman and mr. harry wilson are all former members of the automotive task force at the united states department of treasury. miss nicki clowers is the director of financial markets and community investment at the government accountability office. thank you for your service. mr. todd zawicki is a professor of law at george mason university school of law and senior scholar at the mercades center. as you all well know, this committee swears in witnesses before their testimony so if you all would please rise and raise your right hands. you will be sworn before your testimony. raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the

truth? yes. thank you. you may be seated. let the record reflect the witnesses answered in the affirmative. you all are well practiced at testifying before congress. as you well know, we have the light system here. green means as we know from traffic schools or if you have tickets, repeated traffic schools. green means go. s stop.means hurry up. you will have five minutes to summarize your testimony. in order to allow for discussion and questions afterwards. we will begin with miss christie romero for five minutes. >> chairman mchenry, ranking member quigley and members of the committee, i'm very honored to appear before you today and very much want to thank you for holding this hearing. sig-t.a.r.p. was created to protect the interests of those who funded t.a.r.p. and that's the american taxpayers, and an important part of sig-t.a.r.p.'s mission is to bring transparency to the decisions that were made by the government in the wake of

the financial crisis. by examining the past, we can take advantage of lessons learned so that we can better protect taxpayers in the future. in addition, taxpayers have an absolute right to know the decisions that went into how t.a.r.p. dollars were spent. the government provided approximately $80 billion in t.a.r.p. funds in the auto bailout, and sig-t.a.r.p. has brought transparency to decisions made by treasury and the auto task force in the auto bailout. we seek to bring greater transparency to gm's decisions to provide funds to top up the pensions of certain hourly workers who are at delphi corporation who were formerly employed by gm and who were represented by one of three unions. we are conducting an audit review of treasury's role in that decision and whether the auto task force pressured gm to provide additional funding for those pensions. we have closely coordinated with gao, who conducted similar but not duplicative reviews. we have experienced significant

delay by the refusal to be interviewed by the three former treasury officials who served on the auto team, mr. bloom, mr. wilson and mr. feldman. the former co-head of the auto team, mr. ratner, only agreed to be interviewed this may. these individuals were heavily involved in the t.a.r.p. assistance to gm and gm's restructuring and have knowledge about the pension issues. we first requested from treasury interviews of these former treasury officials in may 2011. months later, treasury told us that the individuals would not meet with sig-t.a.r.p. while other members of the auto team would. we contacted these individuals directly while reviewing documents and interviewing other witnesses. we asked treasury to speak to these former treasury officials about the importance of cooperating with sig-t.a.r.p. when it became clear that the individuals would not agree to be interviewed, we informed this committee. the lack of cooperation by these former treasury officials has significantly protracted sig-t.a.r.p.'s review. we were forced to look elsewhere for the information. while we continued to request

their cooperation, we reviewed more than 100,000 pages of documents but those documents do not provide a complete picture. we often find in our audits a lack of detailed and complete documentation of decision making related to t.a.r.p. many discussions and decisions are made in meetings and telephone calls. interviews of government officials are essential to gain a complete picture. documents such as e-mails simply do not tell the whole story. we interviewed others who might have information. we interviewed 43 current and former officials from gm, delphi, three unions, pbgc, the auto team and dsra which represents certain delphi salaried workers whose pensions gm did not top up. information from these witnesses and documents led sig-t.a.r.p. to determine that mr. wilson, mr. feldman and mr. bloom were the government officials who were involved in the delphi pension decision and discussions. sig-t.a.r.p. does not have the ability to compel witness testimony. there is no valid reason for these former treasury officials to refuse to be interviewed. treasury suggested that sig-t.a.r.p.'s interviews are unnecessary because gao already determined treasury's role and

because mr. wilson, mr. feldman were deposed and gm and delphi's bankruptcies. gao did not conduct interviews of treasury's role or whether there was any pressure by the auto team, instead deferring to sig-t.a.r.p. also, we read the depositions and still find it necessary to conduct the interviews. the refusal by these former+++o;

always supporting sig-t.a.r.p. and i'm available to answer any questions that you have. >> thank you for your service to our government. mr. bloom, recognized for five minutes. >> mr. chairman and members of the committee, good morning. while i'm here today at your request in my capacity as a former treasury official, i left the treasury department in february of 2011 and left government service in september of 2011. i am therefore not in a position to discuss events since february 2011 or anything concerning possible future actions. during the period of my government service, i testified regarding the treasury's automotive investments in front of the senate banking committee on june 10th, 2009, the house judiciary commercial and administrative law subcommittee on july 21st, 2009, the

congressional oversight panel on july 27th, 2009 and february 25th, 2010, and the house subcommittee on regulatory affairs, stimulus oversight and government spending on june 22nd, 2011. in addition, i participated in numerous meetings and discussions and helped prepare and deliver written and oral responses to countless inquiries of sig-t.a.r.p., gao, congressional oversight panel and individual elected officials and staff from both the house of representatives and the senate. i understand the committee has taken an interest in issues regarding the pensions of certain former employees of the delphi corporation. as you may know, i was named as a defendant in the lawsuit in federal court regarding that issue. september 2nd, 2011, i was dismissed from the case as was treasury and the president's auto task force. when president obama took office, the american automobile industry was on the verge of collapse. in the year prior, the industry

lost over 400,000 jobs and as 2008 came to a close, both gm and chrysler were running out of cash and faced the imminent prospects of uncontrolled liquidations. the collapse of the u.s. auto industry posed a substantial risk to financial market stability and the economy as a whole. therefore, the previous administration provided $24.8 billion to the auto industry. after studying the restructuring plan submitted by gm and chrysler, president obama decided that he would not commit any additional taxpayer resources to these companies without fundamental change in accountability. he rejected their initial plans and demanded that they develop more ambitious strategies to reduce costs and increase efficiencies. however, president obama also recognized the failing to stand behind these companies would have far-reaching consequences. gm and chrysler were supported by a vast network of auto suppliers which employed three times as many workers and depended on the automakers' business to survive. an uncontrolled liquidation of a

major automaker would have had a cascading effect throughout the supply chain, causing failures and job losses on a much larger scale. because ford and other auto companies depended on those same suppliers, the failure of the suppliers could have caused those auto companies to fail as well. also at risk were the thousands of auto dealers across the country as well as small businesses in communities with concentrations of auto workers. it was this interdependence that led some experts at the time to estimate that at least one million jobs could have been lost if gm and chrysler went under. why the respected economist marc zandi recently stated 2.5 million jobs were at risk. these were grave risks at a time when our economy was losing 750,000 jobs per month. credit markets were not functioning properly. there was no chance of securing private lending on a scale sufficient to save gm and chrysler. to avoid uncontrolled liquidations, the president decided to give gm and chrysler a chance to show that they could

take the tough and painful steps to become viable companies. working with their stake holders and the president's auto task force, both gm and chrysler underwent fair and open bankruptcies. this process required deep and painful sacrifices from all stake holders, including workers, retirees, suppliers, dealers, creditors and the countless communities that rely on a vibrant american auto industry. the steps that the president took avoided a catastrophic collapse of the entire auto industry and kept hundreds of thousands of americans working. today, the american automobile industry is mounting a comeback. in 2011, gm, chrysler and ford increased their u.s. market share for the second year in a row. exports of motor vehicles in 2011 increased by 21% over 2010. this increase in market share and exports has translated into more american jobs. since 2009, the auto industry has added over 233,000 jobs, the fastest pace of job growth in

the auto industry since 1977. 1997. in addition, since 2009, gm and chrysler have announced investments totally over $11.5 billion. in a better world, the choice to intervene in gm and chrysler would not have had to be made. but amidst the worst economic crisis in a generation, the administration's decisions avoided devastating liquidations and provided the american auto industry a new lease on life and a real chance to succeed. i am prepared to do my best to answer your questions. >> mr. feldman, you're recognized for five minutes. >> thank you. mr. chairman and members of the committee, i understand that i have been requested to appear today before you to discuss my role with the treasury department's auto team which i joined in 2009, march of 2009, as chief legal advisor and on which i served until august of 2009. the treasury department recruited me to join the auto team from my career as an attorney in private practice, where i specialized in reorganizing and restructuring large businesses, not unlike the american automobile manufacturers w