so in order to get the banks to dewitt paulson gave a pretty generous deal. the money wasn't expensive by the market terms and there were not a lot of strings some of which came back to haunt the treasury leader. but i think we know more now than we did at the time. most of the big banks have now paid back the money and so, the combination of putting capital into the bank's and then the obama administration stress test which we made fun of this business of sorting for putting the banks through an exercise, what if exercised, what if the economy were bad, how much, how many losses would you have and how much capital do you need against those losses, the exercise we ridicule and we thought was a stunt of some kind that turn out to work pretty well and it allowed the banks to begin to raise capital privately so they could pay back the government. so i think that there are a lot of things they did that you can say in retrospect might have been mistakes and there are other things they did in putting the initial terms of putting capital to the banks which you can s

this is something paulson has been trying to avoid. he's more comfortable having the fed do this and go to the congress and beg for money. totally irrational. so he and bernanke, no sign of the president, go to capitol hill, meet with the leaders and bernanke does scare the hell out of them. bernanke invokes the great depression and says it is off to them to stop it and he says he is known for some time they are going to need taxpayer money and every other banking crisis eventually taxpayers come in and help rebuild the foundation of the bank's and i think he makes the judgment that the only way to get the congress to act is to tell them that the world will end if they don't act and it is a high risk think because as you know congress initially says no the house rejects the bill and it's kind of like he told us the world would end if we don't do this and then they don't do it so i think there was a great deal of damage done and even worse, they told congress they are going to use the money for one thing and the use it for something els

they said on their public on september 23, secretary paulson said that congress must act -- quote --"in order to avoid a continuing series of financial institution failures an frozen credit markets that threaten the very health of our economy." in private the diagnosis was even more dire. we were told that we're literally days away from a complete financial meltdown in the united states unless congress act to authorize the troubled asset relief program. now, madam president, many of us, including myself, voted for tarp because we were told by the -- the smartest people on the planet that unless we did this, our economy would suffer an economic meltdown. but i must tell you that i'm extremely disappointed when the very nature of the program was changed after congress authorized it. for example, we were told by secretary paulson, and others, that the money would be used for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to purchase toxic assets. well, you know, there's a saying that says, fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me. and we were fooled into believing that the

they said on their public on september 23, secretary paulson said that congress must act -- quote -- "in order to avoid a continuing series of financial institution failures an frozen credit markets that threaten the very health of our economy." in private the diagnosis was even more dire. we were told that we're literally days away from a complete financial meltdown in the united states unless congress act to authorize the troubled asset relief program. now, madam president, many of us, including myself, voted for tarp because we were told by the -- the smartest people on the planet that unless we did this, our economy would suffer an economic meltdown. but i must tell you that i'm extremely disappointed when the very nature of the program was changed after congress authorized it. for example, we were told by secretary paulson, and others, that the money would be used for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to purchase toxic assets. well, you know, there's a saying that says, fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me. and we were fooled into believing that the

hank paulson met with the entire board of june -- the entire board of aig in 2008.counting on this building broke mess. they took all of their stocks out and the taxpayers pay for everything. were you aware that they had this tarp written? guest: whether or not they had it written as a bill before the crisis occurred? i know that treasury had ordered certain studies to be made. they do this all the time. they do this in the pentagon. at the treasury they have contingency plans for everything. , that was of the first situation where we knew that we were headed to a financial disaster. when there was a failure in of breath the secretary ordered a study as to what could be done under the of this in law to a large extent i have been involved in drafting the legislative plan. we started with a small bill and ultimately it was increased to where it eventually had over 4 under pages. so, i do not doubt the veracity your statement might be correct, but i do not think it is poured into the matter. -- pertinent to the matter. we are pulling out all sorts of information. we st

paulson had that on those days in december. had you been in the room when this was delivered, in other words, you, the sec, would you have then been aware of the failure of the proxy in time to at least begin action at that point in december? >> well, you would would have to know exactly what was said in the proxy and then compare that to the information that was then available. >> but you knew that? you have compliance people. you are hand and hand and you get paid to make sure that the public is protected throughout the process of a merger. so let me ask you the real question, we're the government oversight committee and it is a double entaund ra because we oversee the government, we're also the government entity that oversees things that are outside of the government. in this case, the federal reserve, the treasury and the s.e.c., as i understand it through testimony again and again, the s.e.c. was locked out of this process during that time and did not get into the process until january, isn't that correct? you were not --

our co2 goes into the atmosphere, paulson to the oceans and creates acid.that acid has made the ocean 30% more acidic than they were. the u.k. has nothing to do with this issue. this is a picture of a pteropod shell. these are very small creatures that form the base of the food chain. the oceans are becoming more acidic and it will be much more acidic at the end of the century what they did was took a pteropod and put it in water that is of the same as the attitude that it will be at the end of the century. in 15 days, it starts to lose some of its calcium carbonate. in 30 days it loses more ended in 40 days, it is just a pile of mush the reason i am showing you this is because this is a dirty little secret of climate change and co2 pollution. i hope that someone would write a headline that the oceans have the potential of dying and the food chain being disrupted and less -- i don't care if there was a communist plot in the u.k., i hope someone will think about that. i will leave on this one note. i think we have a responsibility. i want to suggest that the

retire from politics they tend to go into lobbying and once they come bahe ben bernanke, and hank paulson are well known for this. can you talk about that and how it could be stopped through laws or a butcher action? >> i am glad you're reminded me of that. my friends do this. they just kind of like me with their work on capitol hill than two years later they have nice suits and offering to buy new lunch because they left the capitol hill job and a lobbying firm hired them because then they know when he calls his friend and says the want to talk to about the farm bill, that his old boss or their colleagues will take the call. that is the revolving door. obama's said he would stop the revolving door. his wife house chief of staff is rahm emanuel who there is almost not the right word because during on the clinton 1992 campaign as a chief fund-raiser he was being paid by goldman sachs at the same time as a consultant. he could be paid to work for clinton for all we know. then he goes to will work at a private equity ferber ferber -- firm. if you look at the books they were all people who ha

hank paulson met with the entire board of june -- the entire board of aig in 2008. they're counting on this building broke mess. they took all of their stocks out and the taxpayers pay for everything. were you aware that they had this tarp written? guest: whether or not they had it written as a bill before the crisis occurred? i know that treasury had ordered certain studies to be made. they do this all the time. they do this in the pentagon. at the treasury they have contingency plans for everything. , that was of the first situation where we knew that we were headed to a financial disaster. when there was a failure in of breath the secretary ordered a study as to what could be done under the of this in law to a large extent i have been involved in drafting the legislative plan. we started with a small bill and ultimately it was increased to where it eventually had over 4 under pages. they were inserted by the legislateors in the congress when we worked on the rescue plan. i don't doubt the veer asity -- i'm thinking of his name now, our friend from the "new york t

in another question i asked him and secretary paulson's claim that the first nine bank that got tarpey were all healthy when city group and bank of american later needed much more bail out money. this is just not my concern, as tarp inspector general says late er to paulson and ben bernanke should not have lied to the public about the health of those banks. chairman ben bernanke's response was that by healthy, they maintain that the panic where is viable. and not in eminent danger of failure. based on the new dea definition healthy i hope nigh doctor never tells me i'm healthy again. i also followed up on a question asked by chairman dod about the fed's claim the banks supervision job helps with monetary policies. i asked for a specific about how that has helped in monetary policy. but received only general talking points. in fact, the only specific example provided about the bail out lending facility is not monetary policy and those facilities as was pointed out by a financial blogger yesterday were not su designed by a bank supervisor but the market division in new york. i will sto

they said on their public on september 23, secretary paulson said that congress must act -- quote --o avoid a continuing series of financial institution failures an frozen credit markets that threaten the very health of our economy." in private the diagnosis was even more dire. we were told that we're literally days away from a complete financial meltdown in the united states unless congress act to authorize the troubled asset relief program. now, madam president, many of us, including myself, voted for tarp because we were told by the -- the smartest people on the planet that unless we did this, our economy would suffer an economic meltdown. but i must tell you that i'm extremely disappointed when the very nature of the program was changed after congress authorized it. for example, we were told by secretary paulson, and others, that the money would be used for one purpose and one purpose only, and that is to purchase toxic assets. well, you know, there's a saying that says, fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me. and we were fooled into believing that the tarp would

. >> i was margaret paulson's producer at cnn. i enjoyed your conference last week. >> you were there? >> i was. >> a great job. it is deborah, isn't it? >> yes, deborah. [inaudible conversations] >> i wasn't able to make it to the dinner at your home. conrad. >> it is. [inaudible conversations] >> quite right. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. >> you look absolutely. are you taller than am i? this man, he used to be a journalist. >> i know. >> you are so great. i'm really honored the > yeah. >> thank you. >> tina is here. >> what? >> she was looking for you. [inaudible conversations] >> all three of them. >> come on. come around. >> i didn't mention it. you a ride. >> all three of us. survivors. good to see you, ralph. [inaudible conversations] >> i put what i truly believe. >> a good review? >> yes. >> also in the chicago sun-times. you knows sidney. >> never met him. >> thank you. [inaudible conversations] >> so good to see you. [inaudible conversations] >> i love that. >> i didn't. [inaudible conversations

when we started with secretary paulson 14 months ago, i could not get him to answer the phone.the administration that came in and they said they wanted to know, but it was hard to find anyone. it was a lot of chaos, but a bit of information began to trickle in. we are now in the third phase and there's more information. there is a website. there are things you can see. but still not enough information. the treasury and federal reserve really seem to believe it can operate behind closed doors. maybe they can do that in good times. no one asked before. but they have a long history of operating largely in secret. but these are not corporate -- ordinary times. when they turn to the american people and say, august $700 billion of your money to spend our we want to spend it, -- give us the $700 billion of your money to spend how we want to spend it, they have to be completely open about how they spend that money. host: south carolina, you're on the air. caller: all i want to say is that your allocated a bunch of money to another country to be of the people out. i know the government

in other question i asked him and secretary paul -- about secretary paulson's claim that the first nine banks that got t.a.r.p. money were all healthy. when citigroup and the bank of america later needed much more bailout money. this is just my concern as the t.a.r.p. inspector general said later to paulson and bernanke should not have lied to the public about the health of those banks. chairman bernanke's response was that "healthy," they maintained that the banks were viable. and not in imminent danger of failure. based on the new definition of "healthy," he hope my doctor never tells me i'm healthy again. i also followed up on a question asked at the hearing by chairman dodd about the fed's claim that its banks supervision job helps with monetary policy. i asked for specifics about how that has helped in monetary policy. but received only general talking points. in fact, the only specific examples provided about the bailout lending facility, not monetary policy. and those facilities, as was pointed out by a financial blogger yesterday, were not designed by the bank supervisor at the

paulson net with the entire board of goldman sachs in june of 2008? this was on c-span tv. and then? july and august the a.i.g. president went to them and asked them if they could become bank holding companies and primary dealers so they could reap the benefits of their own companies going broke several months down the road we have supposedly a shock and they took all their stocks out and we the taxpayers are the ones that paid for it. were you aware they had this tarp written up? guest: the question is if they had the tarp written up as a bill before the crisis occurred, if that's the question, i know that treasury ordered certain studies to be made and they do this all the time. they do this in the pentagon. they have war plans for every nation in the world. in treasury they have contingency plans for everything that might happen. and certainly what happened in september, which was the final straw that broke the camel's back, that wasn't the first occasion that we knew we were going to run into and were running into a financial disaster. we'd actually had it occur almost

paulson had that on those days in december.c, would you have then been aware of the failure of the proxy in time to at least begin action at that point in december? >> well, you would would have to know exactly what was said in the proxy and then compare that to the information that was then available. >> but you knew that? you have compliance people. you are hand and hand and you get paid to make sure that the public is protected throughout the process of a merger. so let me ask you the real question, we're the government oversight committee and it is a double entaund ra because we oversee the government, we're also the government entity that oversees things that are outside of the government. in this case, the federal reserve, the treasury and the s.e.c., as i understand it through testimony again and again, the s.e.c. was locked out of this process during that time and did not get into the process until january, isn't that correct? you were not -- your agency was not informed of what the fed was doing or the treasury was doi

extraordinary action last fall and into last winter and the early spring, along with the secretary paulson and geithner, this country would be in a catastrophicic financial situation. we would be experienced potentially a depression or a recession radically more than we're expeer yens. the way i describe sit like people driving over a bridge that was about to fall down, they didn't know somebody was there to fix it because it didn't. they don't give you credit. it was an aggressive and creative action. you have acknowledged over $2 trillion that it looks like to mow that went into making the institutions liquid at this time. i respect what you did. obviously don't agree with 100% of it. i didn't hold the magic wand. the proof is in the pudding that we're coming out of the recession and the world didn't deinvolve into fiscal chaos. which it might have done without your initiative. there are a lot of big issues pending sllt of that. as we try to reorder the way we approach the structure of financial institutions. what i think is critical is that as we do that, we not undermine our great an u

wheyou get into a scene you actually the is a sne where hank paulson literallyis vomiting because ofthe so of emotional turmoil that is all king. you really do get to s the ad hoc nature withhich this whole crisis was nfling and -- enveloping an how theyere trying to rescue the system. >> porter: john cassidy yochose to go back a explorehe underlng economics of the cris. why tha >> well, probably becae i'm an economic journalist an partly because i knea lo of people, arew included would be providing reting narratives of what happened. i li to think that andrew provides the fly on the wall view, and i provide the view from the orbing satellite. what i am ting too is explain how the difrent bits of the story fit tether,explain why it happened, and whate need to do to prevent a similar outcome the future. >> reporter: d john, as here a key insighthatou bringo this or came fr a of this? >> yeah, my agument ishat ultimately this was a case of mipplied ideas. some good,ensible ideas about how free market enomies work were taken and applied toreas where they don't work properly, particularl

in the last 20 years quincy jones a friend of ambassador young paulson one of my mentors and said it takes 20 years to change a culture. knoll's 20 years that think we made them sexy. we have them down and we have celebrated. what is the effect of that? did today people wake up and say i have an idea, they wake up and say i want to make money and what did they say tomorrow? i want to make more money. money has become the product. not the byproducts. and that is why we run into a ditch. so, this book talks about, there are two things in the world, there is love and there is fear and what you don't love you fear. the reason the world is all screwed up as most of our leaders have led by fear. what is fear's first cousin? short-term azzam. bill george gibbs and his book the seven lessons of leading in crisis. what short term as some's roommate? greed. what is greed's vista relative? glaziness. so, what do we have? we have fear, short-termism, greed and are really colluding together to create a new culture. and if you look at this crisis, it is prepackaged paint, because all of those thin

in other question i asked him and secretary paul -- about secretary paulson's claim that the first ninebanks that got t.a.r.p. money were all healthy. when citigroup and the bank of america later needed much more bailout money. this is just my concern as the t.a.r.p. inspector general said later to paulson and bernanke should not have lied to the public about the health of those banks. chairman bernanke's response was that "healthy," they maintained that the banks were viable. and not in imminent danger of failure. based on the new definition of "healthy," he hope my doctor never tells me i'm healthy @@@@ i ask for specifics about how this has helped the monetary policy. but i receive only general talking points. the only specific example that was provided about the bailout lending facility and the monetary policy -- this was pointed out by the financial blottegger. this was not designed by the supervisor. bank supervisor at the fed but by the market division in new york. i will stop going through the individual questions, because most of them his answers just ignored the question or re

i asked him about secretary paulson's claim that the first nine banks that the park money were healthyd bank america needed more bailout money. as the tarp inspector general said later, paulson and bernanke should not have lied to the public about the health of the banks. chairman bernanke's response was that by healthy, they meant that the banks were viable and not in imminent danger of failure. based on the new definition of "healthy," i hope my doctor never tells me that i am healthy again. i also followed up on the question asked at the hearing by chairman dodd about the fed'claims that the supervision job helps with monetary policy. i asked for specifics about how that has helped in monetary policy. i received only general talking points. the only specific example provided about the bailout lending facility was not about monetary lending policy. not monetary policy. and those facilities, as was pointed out by a financial blogger yesterday, were not designed by the bank supervisor at the fed but by the market division in new york. i will stop going through the individual questions,

was it because hank paulson any of his buddies on wall street are you take your guys, or do they have some broader social purpose? i actually think, although it's not mr. potter, at least not in this zip code, that he did the right thing because the alternative was worse. when bernanke one of 60 minutes he sat on a park bench on main street where his father's store had been. if it had been called wall street he would have been dead. [laughter] >> and he said i didn't set out to save wall street. i set out to save main street in order to save mainstreamed i had to save wall street that when you go out the financial system, that people make their money and don't financial institutions get bailed out. and that just happen. the question is, what, are we charging him enough money for this great service we did. we will see when it is in. , pay back their money. it's been a pretty healthy return for the taxpayer. the other thing are going to enough so that we are not in this situation again for your somehow? that really would be criminal. when what we know now, we cannot just a bump along wi

have seemed to helped china and has slowed the push for reform that, you know, once upon a time hank paulson would go to china to lobby, you know, open up your financial system. that no longer seems to have the merits that it once did. in europe, there's a feeling that many institutions weathered the crisis better than ours buying into the fact that there's some stabilizers in the economy. there's much more of a developed social safety net in europe than we have in the united states, but there's still a continued push in europe for global i mean, through the g20 and affect the derivatives trading. we're still trying to figure out how that one plays out. >> so peter, no one seems to be asking the real important question here. how do you convince professor seigel and caps to let you take a thesis topic that allows you to travel to the beautiful islands of the pacific? so i'll have to leave that one for book talk. i expect to see you there soon again. please join me in thanking peter goodman for his appearance at the college today. >> thank you very much. i really enjoyed it. >> peter goodman i

all of us as taxpayers paid the price at secretary paulson's request. republican secretary treasury, to try to sustain this economy not going into a depression. so i would disagree with my friend that we haven't addressed the issue of jobs, we have. i disagree with the gentleman who said 1.4 million jobs. we're still losing jobs, we are, but we're losing and not none of the statistics by the way that i have intoned this afternoon has the gentleman rejected as being accurate. 747,000 jobs lost the last month of the bush administration, less than 190,000 this month. isn't that where we want to be? of course it's not. we want to create 190,000. we want to create 500,000 jobs. we want to get people back to ork work but the first thing we had to do was reverse the extraordinary decline that we inherited in january of this year. i think we've done that. and i will tell my friend that when those who open up their retirement funds that are invested in mutual funds or something else and find that their retirement funds are up 57% from the low point of when this

back into the slush fund that was created under a republican president with tim geithner and hank paulson'sssistance and today, in fact, not a pen hey been paid back to the american people. that money is being recycled into do-good causes or whatever the president in this administration would like to do. mr. chairman, i look forward to us getting the american people's money back as it was promised. we were told that, in fact, we would be paid back all of our money and probably with interest. mr. chairman, unless that money comes back immediately, when you look at chrysler, general motors and, of course, 31-plus billion dollars to aig that tim geithner himself now said we will not get back it is clear that even if all of the other monies given to various organizations through a process of buying mostly preferred debt, if, in fact, all of that is paid back with interest, the offset of the nan we now know we're going to lose would barely make us whole without considering interest is anything other than principle payback. so, mr. chairman, this is the book end. we have only a few questions for

further, they share much in common with the recommendation advanced by secretary paulson in treasury like to highlight a single, crucial recommendation of our work. what is become known as the too big to fail problem is in many ways at the heart of the financial reform effort. there are different ways to approach this challenge. congress could arbitrarily limit the size of financial institutions. they could limit the scope of their activities. or they could work to ensure that any failure is less likely to cause a financial crisis. we favor the latter strategy. it is a strength of the american system that the opportunity to succeed carries with it the prospect of potential failure. to my mind, this system provides the best possible opportunity for shared prosperity. as a result, our task force recommends that all financial institutions should be free to fail. but three to fail in a manner that will not the stabilize the financial system. the task force recommends three specific things with regard to this issue. first, a sliding capital scale so that the larger, more complex, more ris

e-mail from eni, high school student at bishop kelly and paulson oklahoma. i'm currently in u.s. history class and we discussed the content of what should or should not be any history textbook. this topic arose when we were studying the civil rights movement. we were shocked to find our textbook looked over the tulsa race riots which to me, amy, seems an important subject to discuss. i was wondering what you think is most important to have in a textbook. >> guest: i don't know what is most important but we certainly should have things like race riots. we want to show the good and bad. there is -- >> host: did you include the tulsa ressa try it? >> guest: i think i did you better look. it's been awhile since i wrote those books. but the -- it's really tough to decide what to put in and also makes a difference -- this is a high school student who called? >> host: yes. >> guest: there is an educator, kiran egan, we don't have enough philosophers, she's one of them. education was good enough for a plateau and rousseau and motang. we should have good minds in the field, and kiran is o

extraordinary action last fall and into last winter and the early spring, along with the secretary paulson and geithner, this country would be in a catastrophicic financial situation. we would be experienced potentially a depression or a recession radically more than we're expeer yens. the way i describe sit like people driving over a bridge that was about to fall down, they didn't know somebody was there to fix it because it didn't. they don't give you credit. it was an aggressive and creative action. you have acknowledged over $2 trillion that it looks like to mow that went into making the institutions liquid at this time. i respect what you did. obviously don't agree with 100% of it. i didn't hold the magic wand. the proof is in the pudding that we're coming out of the recession and the world didn't deinvolve into fiscal chaos. which it might have done without your initiative. there are a lot of big issues pending sllt of that. as we try to reorder the way we approach the structure of financial institutions. what i think is critical is that as we do that, we not undermine our great an u

once the banking system was in free fall, bernanke worked with treasury under ballpark -- paulson and guide her, did do original and extraordinary measures to stave off a total collapse. this may have been heroic, but they were not normal monetary policies. under his leadership, the fed show about literally hundreds of billions of dollars to private financial institutions, to brains, the brokerages, to insurance companies, the foreign central banks, and the foreign private banks. what were the terms of those transactions? what collateral did the fed receive? what conditions were there? what criteria were used to save some banks and not other? why did the fed choose some winners and choose so many losers? we do not know the answers to those questions? the house of representatives has passed a bill to audit the fed to provide us the answers with those questions. ben bernanke of boys at -- xdopposes the bill, saying thatt represents a takeover of monetary policy. i am sorry, but with all due respect, it is disingenuous, if not dishonest, to suggest that the emergency measures that shuttl

it was written by henry paulson and everyone and their uncle was against that plan and now we're finding out that it's paying off which is what the plan was supposed to do when it began. obama from that plan and now he's reaping the benefit for it. people in this party, on this side of the aisle are against obama because he's antifree market. stimulus had nothing to do with stimulating this market. taxing corporations who employ americans and legislation that out-sourcing american workers to say india is not doing the worker of america any favors and owner industries and autoand real estate doesn't help this economy either. he needs to lower taxes on companies. host: thanks for your thoughts and we'll take a look at that photo of president barack obama in roll call this morning met with democrats yesterday on healthcare. we'll talk with the managing director of managing quarterly about healthcare. senate faces crunch time. he attempted to lend his power of persuasion to the healthcare debate sunday and democrats and liberals scrambled to get on language restricts a borths funding. more c

i just want to mention to paulson and adamle mengin polls in a speech like this but it's helpful to bencouraged and know for these guys across the street to hear ross, the cnn poll out the last few days when they asked do you support the health care reform coming out of washington, 61% of our fellow americans say no. 61%. [cheers and applause] we all heard the president say, and i know you've heard president obama c. this: if i can just communicate with the american people, if they can just hear, we will pass this legislation. have you guys heard that? he has gone on every prime time show possible including david letterman, i'm not sure if that's helpful but he did it. and it is a problem for the president. the american people are hearing him loud and clear. they don't believe what he's singing about health care. they know better. three things the president says about health care that we know are not true. number one, when the president says don't worry, i know the budget deficit is bad but my government health care takeover won't raise the deficit a penny do we believe that? [booing]

in 2009 the present in almost 50% decrease from the 1.1 million arrests made at the border from to paulson five, 2006. department of homeland security has completed over 340 miles of pedestrian financing and almost 300 miles of vehicle barriers and this in addition to almost doubling the amount of border patrol agents since 2005. cities are developments that have been critical to this progress, but to be frank, the leadership did not come from the executive branch. it came from congress and the american people, who are consistent these things be done. the fact is that the current dhs policies are systematically weakening, i think, our interior enforcement. we need to talk about that. i believe that -- that the american people rejected this philosophy in 2006 and in 2007, and we need to be able to show the american people that laws will be forced and we are not just going to look the other way. faith in the system is eroding and massive descend worldwide we need to reinforce our laws and the messages if you can just get into this country you're safe, don't worry about that. enforcement has

paulson came here and said that our financial system was on its knees. we reacted, both democrat and republican, and i might add, even the tarp did better than most democrats and republicans expected. we inherited the worst recession since the great depression. two wars that weren't paid for, a broken health care system and 1950's energy policy. that was the gift from the bush administration and the republican majority in congress so there's been a lot to fix this year and we've been about that business. so here we are digging out from the bush economy. it's time to get this done, but it's not going to happen overnight. it's time to fund our priorities and meet the needs of the american people. simply, mr. speaker, this bill is a good basis, this rule is a good basis for the bill we're considering today and deserves to be supported by every single member in this body. i'm very pleased and privileged to yield two minutes to the distinguished gentleman, the dean of the house of representatives from michigan, mr. dingell. the speaker pro tempore: the gentle

november 2008, after those presidential elections, you and secretary paulson came before members of this committee and basically said, you know, we have an emerging set of circumstances and we need you to act, to do so boldly. and in the absence of doing that, that we would have a global financial meltdown. so i want to start there because it's the beginning of what has then transcended since then. is that pretty much a fair statement? >> yes, sir. except it was october. >> october. okay. and the absence to place thereof. i often get to my constituents back in n i have to pay for it , too. the difficulty is creating a connection why we acted based on the expertise on others who said we needed to do so otherwise there be a global meltdown. that has real-life consequences. is that a fair statement? >> of course. which brings me to where we are today. i want to get a cent from you -- do you believe that the american economy is recovering? >> it is beginning to grow again. we would like to go faster. we like just to come back faster. we avoided and even far worse situation by avoiding the co

ceo kenneth lewis, the federal reserve chairman ben bernanke, and former treasury secretary hank paulson, and officials at the bank of america, there is still strong questions and i know the intent of this committee through its chair is to get some of the questions answered. so we will know really what took place. and we want to hear from you the role of the government and what was played in the negotiations, the quality of the bank of america's due diligence process, and the motivation behind b of a's attempt to claim a material adverse change, or the mac, and the adequacy of their disclosure to shareholders. can you package all that in and clarify it for us? i think this is, what, the third or the fourth hearing, mr. chairman? >> fifth. >> fifth. okay. let us hear how you would describe the roles that each one of these sectors play. >> well, congressman, as involving some or all of the matters that are currently under investigation, i have to be careful about my comments. with respect to the proxy that was sent out in connection with the merger, as we have charged in our complaints, we