khuzami, were you here for miss bair's testimony and questioning earlier this morning? >> yes, i was. >> so you're aware of what she said and confirming what mr. lewis had told this committee about the meeting took place in october, ten days after t.a.r.p. had passed where the nine biggest financial institution were brought to this town including bank of america, told they were now going to have their bank partially nationalized and had to accept t.a.r.p. money and fine a form. you heard that all that testimony that she gave? >> yes. >> and i guess my point is, my question is, well, let me go back to this. and she -- her testimony to this committee a few hour ago was that that action by the fed, by mr. paulsen, by mr. -- treasury secretary paulsen and federal reserve chairman bernanke, quote, took her breath away, when she saw, you know, what took place at that meeting. so now as we move forward, it seems to me that, you know, i guess your testimony, i apologize for not being here, i was at another commitment, you talked about shareholders being misled. but it seems to

bair's role in that meeting.es and negative implications of the government's intervention in the private sector and hope the congress will apply these lessons as we debate the appropriate framework for our financial system as we move forward. with that, mr. chairman i thank you and yield back. >> thank you very much. we now move to our witness. we have with us today the chair of the federal deposit insurance corporation. madam chair, longstanding tradition with swear all of our witnesses in. if you would stand and raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth if so answer in affirmative. >> i do. >> letted record reflect, you may be seated. let the record reflect the witness answered in the affirmative. you may begin with your testimony. >> chairman towns, chairman kucinich, ranking members issa and jordan and members of the committee, as requested by the committee, my testimony today will focus on the fdic's role and the decision to -- >> madam chair, d

bair's role in that meeting. meeting.curred continued to reveal the unintended consequences and negative implications of the government's intervention in the private sector and hope the congress will apply these lessons as we debate the appropriate framework for our financial system as we move forward. with that, mr. chairman i thank you and yield back. >> thank you very much. we now move to our witness. we have with us today the chair of the federal deposit insurance corporation. madam chair, longstanding tradition with swear all of our witnesses in. if you would stand and raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth if so answer in affirmative. >> i do. >> letted record reflect, you may be seated. let the record reflect the witness answered in the affirmative. you may begin with your testimony. >> chairman towns, chairman kucinich, ranking members issa and jordan and members of the committee, as requested by the committee, my testimony today will focus on the

bair's role in that meeting.his investigation occurred to, continued to reveal the unintended consequences and negative implications of the government's intervention in the private sector and hope the congress will apply these lessons as we debate the appropriate framework for our financial system as we move forward. with we have with us the chair of the federal deposit insurance corp. we must share every witness in, so please raise your right hand. do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? let the record reflect that the witness has answered in the affirmative. you may began with testimony. >> ranking members, and members of the committee. as requested by the committee, my testimony will focus on the fdic and their role -- >> do you want to pull the microphone? >> >> and please be closer. >> as requested by the committee, my testimony will focus on the role of the fdic to provide insurance to the bank of america. bank of america is an open institution, and the fdic is v

>> caller: bair hoping a ranch will be thrown into this when they go into conference committee with the house. there are huge differences between the senate bill and house bill between the public plan that is not and also the senate bill and the house bill to finance legislation in very different ways. that is where you will see the most argument between democrats and senate in the house. i am sure republicans will do what they can to influence that debates and cause a problem. >>host: one more question. when they take a vote at 1:01 a.m. eastern, will they go out for the night? >> yes. a lot of them i don't think you will see again until tuesday morning. >>host: alex line from "congressional quarterly" thank you for the update. we have roughly 15 minutes before the senate comes back into session. we will take your phone calls for those in favor of the bill and those against, we have california, are you there? >> caller: yes site em. i am against the bill because it will be a huge huge, the whole country will go into economic upheaval. the health care is terrible. they will cut all heal

bair and there is an ax and the bear. they found the bears to be so dangerous that they killed him more or less regularly. they would sail north looking for well but when they saw polar bears they would shoot them. if they saw a polar bear in the water, they would shoot at it. and they began to build up a mythology of how dangerous these bears were. and they were not really that dangerous. rather, they were curious. they had never seen people before. this is the dominant predator of the arctic. and an animal but probably, even though, probably doesn't know fear as much. they are not afraid of anything. there's nothing out there that would threaten them. so when they saw people, they sniffed around and they went to see what this was. if the people were eating something or cooking something, that was even more interesting. if the people ronde dogsled, the bears went trailing behind them. and all of these occurrences, were responsible for people shooting bears. they would say the bear came into our camp so we shot a. the bea

all kidding aside, it is amazing what we have forgotten already in 10 months, just how bair and bleakings looked 10 months ago. -- just how dire and bleak things looked 10 months ago. before the president and i dropped are right hand on january 20-year, already -- on january 20 this year, already 720,000 people have lost their job. another 640,000 people lost their job in the short month of february. the fact of the matter wrist the last jobs report was not good, but a lot better, 190,000 jobs lost. our economy was shrinking when we took office at a rate of 6%, actually above that. now it is growing at a rate of about 3% last quarter. leading economists attribute a large portion of that gdp growth in the last quarter to the recovery act. according to the most recent cbo report -- if you notice, the one thing that those of you who cannot work here every day, you'll notice the one thing republicans and democrats agree on is the up should the nativity -- we agree on is the objectivity of the cbo because they are bipartisan and responses. the cbo report, the most. -- the most recent repor

chairman bair to subgroups. again, they are two separate parts. there over 27 million families who will pay five or more overdraft this year based on the last data so that it's a pretty good head and then there is this group that just gets hammered because that same study found that the average household in the high use group paid $1,600 a year and overdraft fees, $1,600 so-- but the abuse is not just the very high use. it does spread across a much larger swath of account holders, 27 million to be exact. >> senator, if i may. a couple of points worth making. i asked because i anticipated this question, i want to see whether there was a disproportionate impact to the people who received an overdraft the orrin anne's f.e. across are checking account business and again, since we don't do them, we don't do the devitt and we don't do dat insel this is limited to a group that would otherwise be belting checks and it does not load the, it spreads out across the entire spectrum and that, so again i want to make sure we are focusing on the problem, and the

bair yes. iat is part of the impactgency process on going. with respect to have a disorganized, what has fuseened is dhs has moved as the president policy review suggested to be the lead agency for the protection of on debt the site as well as ust.com sites and indeed i toot had some meetings in the silicon valley quiet out quite negative bit. >> if i could interrupt on ultimadoj will ultimately doj will have the ale dawn of the legal determinations? that is their main of the ulti. ultimately other agencies the d,ll have the technical tec, because of the thatnical complexity of undertaking the efforts that we do. when you take out the aspects,l aspects and legal howcts, it is hard to see how homeland security and up with a very strong platform sor of persistent leadership of less there is some the a call -- a vehicle for coordinating and the attorney general and everybody together? ly.m not comfortable that interimy a excess. it is a good interim measure but it seems it should entlve into a more cyber a stru specific realrnor -- structure and

host: earlier, we had senator jeff bingaman on the program, and a color -- caller mentioned the bairon, and asked why isn't there at -- the biography of lyndon johnson, and asked why isn't there a leader like lyndon johnson. his reply was that it is very different from the 1960's. what is that? -- why is that? guest: there are two independents and the caucus, senator joe lieberman, and senator bernie sanders, and they will vote the way they want. and members are much more forceful now. they are less cowed by their leadership and more willing to stand up by themselves -- stand up for themselves. lyndon johnson had huge majorities and he could control them, he could control purse strings, where senators sat, what committees they were on, everything. now there is much more press coverage, and if the senate leader is trying to retaliate, the press will jump all over it. senators are much more likely to speak up and less likely to accept it out of fear that it will ruin their careers. host: to questions and comments about the senate's 18 days of health care debate and the use of senate ru

khuzami, were you here for miss bair's testimony and questioning earlier this morning? >> yes, i was. >> so you're aware of what she said and confirming what mr. lewis had told this committee about the meeting took place in october, ten days after t.a.r.p. had passed where the nine biggest financial institution were brought to this town including bank of america, told they were now going to have their bank partially nationalized and had to accept t.a.r.p. money and fine a form. you heard that all that testimony that she gave? >> yes. >> and i guess my point is, my question is, well, let me go back to this. and she -- her testimony to this committee a few hour ago was that that action by the fed, by mr. paulsen, by mr. -- treasury secretary paulsen and federal reserve chairman bernanke, quote, took her breath away, when she saw, you know, what took place at that meeting. so now as we move forward, it seems to me that, you know, i guess your testimony, i apologize for not being here, i was at another commitment, you talked about shareholders being misled. but it seems to