uc minority representatives chronically under reported. no one will be left behind in this bill. the resources will be targeted to where they are needed the most intriguing jobs throughout the country, a special with communities. but to me as the congressman to come forward from illinois. he also serves as a co-share of the congressional black caucus. ever since his tenure, he is thin laser focus. -- he has been laser focus. >> i had this great speech prepared. i never following him again. i addressed the state convention in talk shoot a police officer. 25 please others are the pink slips in missouri.

i talked to some teachers predict a cell where when today's these teachers. so my colleagues oakland to have 40 or 60 children. how will our children learn in the classroom? . .

>> that should be used to put our children through school and their teachers, our fire fighters, our first response -- the people week to penn daw and. counties are for low-income people when we need them. if we let our children down because we do that have the courage to say we can't find the money, that is nonsense. $15 billion per year this country spends on subsidizing our friends of the oil industry. how about taking that money given to these folks in the communities who can do things that can put people to work? [applause] this is not a question of the

debt. if we can handle these tax cuts for the wealthiest people, if we can't stop subsidizing corporations for leading overseas and taking jobs with them, if we stop the hemorrhage and are investing in manufacturing in our cities and the people who work there, our teachers, our first responders, we will be a much better nation for doing this and we will see a terrible price that we will pay years down the road for letting our children down when they need us the absolute most part i will not be part of that. i will try to debunk the myth that this country is in debt and cannot spend. you can spend and every investment we make, the two things this government makes money on is when you invest in putting people back to work. every person who is unemployed costs this country billions of dollars progress get people back to work. let's get our municipalities and cities to do the hiring they

need. we cannot lay off another teacher, and other firefighters, another first responder. this is ridiculous. we will continue this fight. there's an old movie about my old union called "the inheritance." someone says this is the end but this is only the beginning. thank you for having me. [applause] >> thank you for reminding us that in order to make it in america, we have to make it in america. this is about priorities. we do have the resources here to create the kind of jobs that the country needs. thank you again for your leadership now we will have major nutter come forward. >> all the members of congress and the leaders of the national

association of counties and to the nlc, we are inspired by your leadership, your commitment. we are dedicated as well. we will stand with you. time, anyplace, anywhere to get across this message. we are serious about getting americans back to work. the three organizations represented here really do speak for itself. it speaks volumes about the crossroads we face at this moment. if we are truly americans actually care about other people, let's help our fellow americans and put america back to work. get this jobs bill passed and move on with the business of this great country. thank you. [applause] >> we have a couple of minutes for a few questions. give us your name and the organization you are with. >> i cover state and local

finances in the municipal bond market. brower county, charlotte, you of all issued bonds in the recession. is there a trade off and how are you managing this between a high credit rating to retain access to the bond market and preserve jobs? to access the bond market and your high credit rating, how do you balance maintaining that and the cash reserves it may require with keeping people employed, keeping firefighters and all employed and preserving -- is there a trade-off and how are you managing that issue? >> of course there's a tradeoff. there's a trade-off every day and trying to manage -- how do you provide high-quality service?

how during retain fiscal integrity? we had an offering the other day at a pretty decent rate. quite frankly, i had put forward an idea with the u.s. treasury some time ago that rather than subjecting us to be seized credit market, would rather borrow directly from the united states treasury. they print the money. i broke at a 30-year -- i'd borrow at a 30 year rate. i would save $132 million per year by being able to board likely from the treasury. we torture ourselves by going for the current credit market. there are many things the federal government can do that will not cost the fed's a dime and they will make money. i was down here about a year or so ago and said somebody and treasury that my government is older than yours. [laughter]

unlike those who invested in whether it was banks, investment firms, automobile, airlines and a number of others, we actually would go out of business. we are a great credit risk because we will pay our bills and we will pay you back. it is a daily challenge trying to maintain a high credit rating and access to the markets but also making sure we could pay our public employees. they are not running charities either. they like to get paid from time to time as well. it is a bit of a challenge. they are looking at it. >> any more questions? right here and that one in the back them u. >> it is not the gdp, it is the gop is what i have heard as you talk to people in your

communities, as they are weighing whether the federal government should be spending more money to prevent these layoffs or would they rather use the federal government to devote his energy to reducing the federal deficit and federal spending, what are people in your communities telling you? >> i will ask my colleagues to come over. i have to tell you -- i was a city council member for 14.5 years and have been made mayor for five years. no one has ever walked up to make and told me they are unemployed but the federal government has to get that deficit down. are you serious? people need jobs. they want jobs. they want to get to work. no one is thinking about that. that is a fiction of those who want to have a political debate about something else that has to do more with the election than anything to do with putting

americans back to work. i am as concerned about the federal deficit as anyone else. this is a time to put people to work and stop messing around. that is what this is about. [applause] >> one more question in the back. >> we bring together community allies to support worker rights. we have been mobilizing our base and have been involved in job creation over the past year or so. through a variety of tactics. we talk about how we can fight the deficit without creating jobs for people we want to find out ways we can support this effort to move this legislation along. >> let congressman ellison comment on that them.

>> everyone needs to call the senate to say we need to pass this jobs bill. we have to influence folks. the way you includes members of congress is you talk to them and get in their face. members of congress, we tend to see the light when we feel the heat. that is the temperature and that is what should happen. there is no easy way to it. it will be hard work and everybody in this room has to take it upon themselves to say america needs jobs. there is more to the deficit than the debt argument. when you say that we have a big deficit and we will have to not raise taxes to solve it, then you impose cuts on government. would you impose cuts on government, and a company that does not want to be regulated or once regulation to be so weak it doesn't matte has a for

[applause] year ended do whatever they want to do. you cannot deal with the oil spills and leaks problems or everything and you get to the point where you can drown the government in a bathtub, as some have said. there's more to this than we know. it is through a democratic representative government and democracy that the average citizen can tell a ceo to do certain things and abide by the public interest. this is bigger than just deficits obverses jobs for this is a matter of will americans are run america or people who have no political accountability run it. [applause] >> i would advise you that in september our friends on the other side will have their listening tour. i would suggest to all of you who have -- when the senators go

out and listened, they need to hear what you are saying. otherwise, they will dominate what they think you should be saying and what you want to hear. instead, and i hope ordinary americans will go up to these folks and ask them to listen to us. if you're having a listening tour, we need jobs and we need them now. i would encourage during the august recess to mobilize your members and have fun at the rallies. they did with that one august ago. [laughter] >> i will conclude by saying that we need to take -- the congressional black caucus wrote to every member of the senate and told them exactly what the current employment rates were in their state. we told of what the chronically unemployed rates were. we told what the minority

population unemployment rate for. they know. i think what will have to happen is we have to see them and work with them and let them know in no uncertain terms that members of their constituencies, that their status suffering of so. it does not matter whether they're democrats or republicans or independents or greed. people need jobs. this is non-partisan and it should be seen in that way. i want to thank the press for being here and i hope the message goes out. thank you again. [applause] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010] >> up next, kenneth feinberg. there, today's "washington journal."

-- later, at today's "washington journal." we will have live coverage of the open discussion of the state of black america including keynote speaker vernon jordan and appearances by naacp president and the philadelphia mayor and the dnc chairman and the rnc chairman michael still among others. that begins at 8:00 a.m. eastern time on c-span 2. >> with charles rangel and the news because of the recent ethics subcommittee, use the cspan library to follow this story. this piece -- the cspan video library is on line and free. it is washington your way. >> our public affairs content is available on television, radio, and online and you can connect with us on twitter, facebook,

and youtube and sign up for our schedule alerts e-mails @ c- span.org. >> kenneth feinberg, the treasury department's special master for compensation talked about his report released last week and paying more than 400 companies that received bailout funds from the federal government. he also addressed his role as the responsible person for the $20 billion bp oil spill payout fund.

>> kenneth feinberg will testify before congress this morning. he is one of the preeminent lawyers in the united states. in 2004, he was named as lawyer of the year and is known very well for being involved in many tricky situations dealing with complicated mass disasters including the 9/11 settlement fund. he was the pay czar. he was appointed to look at the pay practices of the bail out financial firms and was subsequently named to the head of the bp oil spill trust fund. trouble seems to have a way of finding ken feinberg or he has a way of finding trouble which is something we admire very much. [laughter]

>> first of all, a sincere apology. i am not used to making people wait an extra 45 minutes. i was delayed by a very energetic house commerce committee focusing on the bp oil spill. i was part of a panel and i could not leave so i apologize. i will try to make it up to you in the next half hour. i am here because of the determination of barbara hauser. she has been after me and told me not to cancel. we have to do this. if i had canceled, pluto would be to close a planet. we planned it this day, barbara and i, and i thank you robert for your comments, we plan to this day because it was perfect

timing in light of the decisions are rendered last week, or a few days ago, on the look back letters that i sent to the top recipients at treasury. barbara and public citizen thought it would be a good idea if we had a bit of a dialogue here. i walked into the lion's den. i want to explain bill look back and my final decision at treasury before a move on to bp. let me give everybody some background. wendell law was passed in february of 2009, it gave me mandatory jurisdiction to set pay for the top 25 officials in seven companies. they said the seven companies

that received the most tarp assistance , citigroup, the bank of america, and others. that is all. it gave me mandatory jurisdiction to set compensation structures at those seven companies for company officials 26-100. this we did. and then, in its wisdom, congress put in a provision basically three lines. the treasury department delegated to the special master by secretary tim geithner, the treasury department shall look back at all 419 companies that

received even $1 of tarp and in his discretion, or her discretion, shall seek to negotiate for reimbursement of compensation payments that were made during the five month window between a company receiving tarp and the recovery act being enacted. congress as it was finalizing

this legislation through in a is a near -- through in any zinger that the information should be gathered and where appropriate shall seek to negotiate reimbursement. of excessive compensation and a five month window. -- in a five month window. the provision gave me no authority to demand anything. it gave me no enforcement power, bully pulpit. you guys pay it back. reimburse, bully pulpit. i went through all this other work i had to do over the last 16 months and finally here it is april and what will we do about this provision? i have no enforcement authority but we can do some good we are

required. ands read all 419 companies the top 25 officials, let write a letter to each of them, give us your information. we decided as a matter of administrative convenience for us and the 419 companies for them to give us the top 25 compensation information for the top 25 during this window. if they did not have anybody who made an annual salary of over five of the thousand dollars, forget it. it is highly unlikely we would do anything with you. if you don't have anybody in the company that made over $500,000 in annual salary -- that would include the window as well as the rest -- we are not interested. that took care about 260 companies. the remainder -- we get all the

data about compensation and looked at the window, the five month window, and found that there were some rather extraordinary payments that companies made to corporate officials after they got tarp money from the taxpayer during that five-month window. one company took all the taxpayers tarp monday and two days later did 25% of it in bonuses. other companies gave some people more than $10 million in the five-month window. now, now what?

now what do i do? we found that there were 17 companies that were summa cum laude. i did not see when i walked in. $10 million to one person, $12 million to another, 24% of all the tarp and money went to bonuses. we went down the list and decided there were 17 that really gave inappropriate compensation. remember, they did nothing illegal. they did nothing that violated any civil or criminal statute or regulation from any agency.

they exercised a very bad judgment and made unwarranted and ill-advised payments. what now do i do with the 17 companies that are summa cum l aude. we found we had immediate problems. 11 of the 17 had already reimburse the taxpayer for every dime they every borrowed plus interest. congress enacted this provision and never in their wildest dreams thought that the tarp program would be as successful as it was in getting companies to repay. right off the bat, you shall seek to negotiate reimbursement but they already reimbursed.

that leaves six companies. one of the six is citigroup. these of the six that have not repaid. one of the company to citigroup and the trouble with them is we already got them under my mandatory jurisdiction to restructure all of their compensation including spinning off fibro and mr. hall's unit and of the total money that citigroup inappropriately paid, 60 percent of it went to a unit, people and the unit that was no longer part of citigroup. they spun it off for a song. their whole compensation structure had been determined by me. there were part of my mandatory jurisdiction. that leaves five companies. i decided that it made no sense,

it made no public policy cents to seek to renegotiate the remaining five in ill-advised in desperate they would laugh in my face. we tested the waters a little bit. secondly, after letting out from this provision, 414 companies to pick on these five, i just decided i would take the heat and not even try to go on a fool's mission to try and get back -- i am a good negotiator. when you negotiate with the leverage makes no sense.

what could we do? we told all 17 companies, whether they paid back tarp or not, that the payments were ill advised and that was bad judgment and that you 17 companies should adopt voluntarily and emergency brake provision. , prospectively. you tell me all the time that you have legal contractual obligations to many corporate officials. your board should act fabric provision that says that if there is another financial crisis as determined by the board and its independent compensation committee other -- under the new government's legislation, the new regulatory legislation, if you determine there is a new financial emergency that threatens the viability of your company, you can, in fact, the trumped the

legal obligations and refused to grant bonuses. your call. this is interesting. half the public reacted to my decision by saying too little, too late, who cares. not much deterrence. they said i wimped out. the other half say it was a terrible idea and this is a government run amok for the government should not be urging companies to invalidate legal contracts, especially the treasury and even though you leave it to the corporate board

to decide what is a financially marcy, you were watching them and this is not good sound public policy. that is what we did. if you sought joke scarborough this morning, -- if you saw joe scarborough this morning, nika brzenski for not mentioning names. they asked me why i did not name the individuals who got these 10 million-dollar bonuses in that five desk month window. name them and mention the amount, not just the aggregate amount. mention the individual amount. bobhernert --bob herbert of

""the new york times and mike gonnicle both said that would have been a terrible idea. the company gave them the money. the company authorized the payments. why are you name the names of the guys who receive the money? it should be the company is who's to blame. i don't know if i had legal authority to name the names but i did not. that is what barbara was waiting for. she was waiting for the look back decision as a good time to come over and for the first time, really, discuss it as a public service and and get the lots of people.

i am all through at treasury, not because of this, on august 1 and then i devote all my time on the gulf oil spill claims facility. that is the look back decision. that is what we were waiting for. those are the decisions we made. by turning over to the experts. >> nonetheless, i will ask a question you have been through the process. you had the bully pulpit and you tried to do shaming and you had some authority. do you think there is a different attitude from wall street and the financial firms? do you expect them to do things in a fundamentally different way for the next year or three years hence? >> one, that remains to be seen. well, as an american historian by trade war by curriculum, i am

not very sanguine. read your history books and you will see how wall street and main street have always been at odds going back to the very beginning. here is the way to answer that question is too early to tell the last to impact. what ever impact i have going forward in the long run is a thimble compared to the other initiatives out there that were pushed by the administration. the regulatory reform bill, secretary tim geithner's g-20 compensation principles, sunshine regulations at the sec when it comes to compensation, sheila bair waging a war with the banks that deal with the fdic, the federal reserve with this new guiding principles on

pay -- i think that's entirely too much attention has been placed on what i am doing. the only impact on pay is from these other pervasive initiatives rather than what i did with seven companies. >> does it follow that we should have the guidelines you mentioned by binding rules on what pay can be at least in terms of incentive structure? >> i don't think so i don't think that the government should be in the business of micro managing paper every company is different, i learned that. culturesume that the and the compensation attitudes are the same from wall street bank to wall street hedge fund to wall street financial

institution. i don't like the idea, i don't think, of government doing what i did. it was all right for this purpose. but i don't think government has the ability to analyze all the various components that can be found company to company to company. i think broader regulatory supervision -- monitoring this is the better way to go. >> the fed is pursuing the most potentially meaningful directive but there will be guidelines. it is hard not to look back at what happened not just to play but to see the compensation system as a significant contributor to the crisis. guidelines may or may not be followed for the fed does not have a good record of enforcing

this stuff. it may be a new day. on that one measure, you still think that no mandatory rules on short-term compensation? >> certainly, no rules and asking a government official like me to calculate compensation, no. forget that. i was actually fixing their pay as opposed to guidelines. i think we will seek the likely impact. we will be on federal reserve, fcc regulation -- sec regulations that talk about pay and monitoring those principles. we will see. up.et's open it ken feinberg is quite transparent but he is also a rush so keep your questions short.

>> [inaudible] >> perceptive fax similar to what we found was contrary to the public interest with the seven companies where we had mandatory pet. in other words, what we found was contrary to the public interest for the last 16 months and that was the violations of pay practices that violated the recovery act.

the recovery act says that payments contrary to the public interest are guaranteed regardless of performance. we went and saw that there were pay practices in 2009 after february and recovery act that regardless ofs pareees, performance. there was no diversification. there's nothing tied to company performance. it was relatively easier to find a statutory violation of the recovery act when the practices engaged in at the time of violated the statutory prescriptions of the recovery act. for me to go back and say that i am the quarterback, let's go back to 2008, in the fall of

2008 or january of 2009 and find that pay practices than also violated the public interest even though at the time they were made, they did not violate the 2009 recovery act. they were before it. i thought that was wrong. i thought was wrong. i did not mean to say that i liked it or it was a good idea. it was ill-advised, unwarranted, bad judgment. fodder for class-action shareholder losses. i did not think it was appropriate. other people would disagree i did not think it was appropriate to charge them with the same standard of violation as people who were by letting the very statute that laid down the prescriptions for this. i did not think that was appropriate. that is the difference.

i have been criticized on two grounds. one, first of all, i am criticized that people don't understand -- of course it was against the public interest. they don't understand the statute. the second argument i get which some people in this room would share, take a look at a 10 million-dollar bonus in a five - after tarp money and that can't rise? i was not comfortable doing that. >> [inaudible]

>> you read the legislative history, they were so in a crisis mode to get the money out for it they want to save these companies. i don't think anybody really thought about that. half the congress thinks the whole idea was web -- was ill- advised and the other half said it saved the country. it sure did help the economy, i think t,arp. you never know what would have been worst. e. >> the seven companies, you have now proposed a governance and pay compensation program. does that state or does that go

with your expiration? >> i am leaving but the special master's office states. ys. the companies are mandated to follow my prescription on pay for the year in question, 2009 and 2010. if they repay the taxpayer they are out from under my jurisdiction. citigroup and bank of america borrowed money to get out from under my jurisdiction >>. have they changed their pay practices already? no, i would say they are following my prescriptions. >> the job that i have when i leave in one week stays because as long as a company a tarp, owes the taxpayer, the top 25

officials shall be determined by treasury. some of those companies will of the taxpayer for the next 25 years. somebody will have to do what i do. >> have the compensation's been submitted to their boards? >> some ve. >> [inaudible] >> no, but we will see about the new regulatory reform act and the independent compensation committee. >> you think about citigroup and bank of america borrowing money to escape your jurisdiction? >> they took their money from their own officials. when i say borrowed money, they owed money to their own internal people, not just the top 25 but may be the top 1000 and got permission or made an agreement. they thought was better to get

out from under the treasury than to give bonuses. they did not borrow from a third party, at least a don't think they did. that is dull lot. if i want to pay it back, they paid it back. >> on like your previous service with the 9/11 fund, the bp fund is not governed by statute is governed by a voluntary agreement. is that public and will it be made public? >> i believe it will be made public. i don't think it is finalized in terms of that agreement >>. are you working on finalizing that? >> absolutely not. i am working on finalizing the terms of the gulf coast claims facility that will process claims of individuals and businesses in the gulf that have

been harmed. that is much different from negotiating the terms and conditions of the $20 billion escrow fund out of which will come my payments. that is being negotiated between the administration and bp. i have nothing to do with that. i assume it will be made public at some point. >> did you find when you initially looked at the 419 firms and set an annual rate, were any of the people given the compensation actively lobbying on capitol hill? is that a violation of the public interest? know the answer to that question. i don't know if they were actively lobbying. i don't know if it is a violation of i was looking at a

rather narrow window on compensation. i did not consider other issues. >> with citigroup and bank of america -- were they not also borrowing money from the taxpayers to pay the taxpayers from the fed through what ever mechanism whether it was the discount window to pay a off thetarp. >> maybe, but again, i am not privy to what their terms were. >> it might not be required by your mandate. we see a shell game going on when they borrow money from the fed to pay a ta of therp to escape limits on compensation. >> money is fungible. i hear the question and i hear the argument, i am just not

sufficiently familiar with the terms and conditions of the citigroup resident with the fed and treasury to comment on it. >> [inaudible] what are your challenges? >> the facility will be up and running next month in august. we will assume all claims from the bp. they have already paid out $230 million of claims. they deserve some credit. we will assume that obligation next month. we will pay all legitimate claims per the challenge will be twofold. first, what constitutes an eligible claim? it is easy if there is a motel

on the beach and there is no customers or clients or guests because there is oil there. or you are a fisherman and you cannot fish because of the oil. those are easy claims. what if you are a motel 40 miles from the beach? and you said that business is down by 1/3 because of the perception of this bill even though the oil never got to the beach? is that a valid claim? one problem will be out used elements of proximity to the beach, to the gulf, proximity, dependents, use of natural resources, industry, fishermen, crabber, oyster harvester, food processor, to decide eligibility.

the second issue will be proving your claim. i am seeing that already. there is a real underground economy in the gulf. mr. feinberg, i made $5,000 on this ship and now we can't fish and i am out $5,000 per month. pay me. show me your tax return. i lost it. .hat happens duri show me check stubs or something. you have to have corroboration. does an all cash business. there is nothing illegal about an all-business but to have to forever in your claim gr. i am not holding it up. i am a fiduciary for the people in the gulf to get the money out.

it will be a problem. i anticipate taking much less documentation than would otherwise be required i will take a letter from the ship captain. even if i take that letter, that fishermen will get a 1099. that may scare him off, i don't know. we will say. the issues are eligibility and proving your claim. >> [unintelligible] do you see a conflict and how you are getting paid? see a conflict but i see a perception of a conflict. be careful when you ask that question because i would come back to you and say that bp is

paying everybody to run this system. who else should they pay? >> [inaudible] >> i have a career doing pro bono. [laughter] i have to come up -- i am not worried about my setting the budget for the rest of the people. i have to come up with some alternative. maybe i asked somebody with great credibility to examine the books, records, time sheets everything i am doing and set the pay so i am not doing it myself. i agree that somehow that perception problem and the transparency of it is important. >> you referred to the 17

companies and the evidence you compiled seems to reflect back on the stockholders' money. would you expect that the 17 companies and some of the other 400 [inaudible] >> do i expect there'll be a filing lawsuits? yes, i do. that is inevitable. >> i was working in new jersey when your the special master of 9/11. some of what you established was incredibly emotional. some of those people told us they did not care for you at first. many people changed 180 degrees

on that. [inaudible] what is it about you that people trust as far as you making decisions? do you have concerns that may be one individual should not returned to time and again? >> absolutely. these are not job requirements that only i can fill. i have experience and that is what people look to. i have experience in dealing with these mass claims situations involving not only substance but the emotion of the people you're dealing with. i have said over and over again that there are millions of americans that if asked could do what i am doing you have to have

some fortitude. but it is 20% substance and 80% in motion. -- the motion -- a motion. tion. >> [inaudible] >> i am not ready to start paying the claims. i am setting up my infrastructure. i suspect there will be a confluence of timing where the escrow money will be available and deposited in banks in the say the first couple of weeks of august. i don't know. at that time, we will be ready to start paying emergency payments to eligible claimants for up to six months of

emergency wage loss and it will come together. i think it is a lot of money they are working hard at it. >> [inaudible] >> yes. >> [inaudible] >> they are working hard to get the money out. time is of the essence, that's for sure. i have no doubt that the $20 billion will be deposited shortly. i think we will be making payments shortly and we can move on. >> we are about to wind down. >> how concerned are you about bp and decline >>?

>> they want to get out of the claims business. i have asked them for their input as well as other people in the area. i have asked for input and i don't think bp wants to be near the managing of these facilities. the very interesting question of lump-sum payments and satisfaction of claims -- it is one thing to give someone an amber is the payment would not release. take the gift with no obligation. at some point, i will ask somebody -- they cannot fish for one year, i will give you a check for $181,000 if you release to be bp.

they might say they can fish for two years. they want double the amount. that individual will be offered one of the $80,000 and if he or she does not want, don't take it. and -- that individual will be offered $180,000 and if she or he does not want, they won't take it. there are respiratory claims in the gulf. the canterbury. -- they can't breathe. will we release the claim? it will be a challenge. it is done every day in every court, jury tell law firm in this country deals with these problems, every day. nothing new about that. >> is the $20 billion a fixed sum? >>no, if it is insufficient, bp

has promised to honor any additional financial obligations they may have. >> last question. >> thank you very much. i'm sorry. i apologized [applause] . [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2010]