in 2002 pfizer agreed to pay $49 million to pay the subsidiary of defraud ing t defrauding the country for overcharging lipitor. and the attorney general charged johnson and johnson with kickbacks to texas health officials. glaxosmithkline agreed to pay $40 million to the state of california, and they also signed a corporate integrity agreement that paid $88 million in civil fines for overcharging. and hoffman laroche, $500 million in 1999, criminal fine for leading a worldwide conspiracy to raise and fix prices for allocating market shares for certain vitamins. and aventis paid $95 million to settle charges that it violated the false claim act. wythe, just this year, 16 states have joined in two whistleblower suits against wythe, and the drug company failed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to rebates to the medicaid program. i hear a lot about fraud and a lot about waste, but what i don't hear about is the role that the major corporate giants in the health care industry are playing in ripping off the american people to tunes of billions and billions of dollars. i don't know why

they voted straight down the line for pfizer. that is what goes on. >> i appreciate that advice and that information and i am looking to play a role, those are precisely the kinds of issues i want to deal with. thank you very much. i yield back. >> i will yield to the gentleman from north carolina. >> i have a question that one of my colleagues asked the previous panel, an interesting one. mr. neugebauer from texas asked, if i presented you with $1,000 and in two weeks you brought back $1 million on that investment, you took $1,000 and turned it into $1 million would it be appropriate for me to pay you $10,000? would that be fair compensation for the return you had given me. go quickly down the rhine -- down the line and then to this question, yes or no? >> i can't answer without knowing more about the circumstances but none of the proposals that anyone here supports, none of the proposals that the government has put together impose this judgment. they involve easier exchange of the government's rules to make decisions or invoke

start out with the largest, pfizer, and some of you may know this, but just this year a jury found that pfizer owed the state of wisconsin $9 million for violating their medicaid law more than 4 million times. that i face potential fines of $431 million and $4 billion. and also 2004, a division of pfizer plead guilty to felonies and agreed to pay $430 million, $430 million to settle charges that were fraudulently promoted a drug, and one for a

and 2004, a division of pfizer plan guilty to two felonies and agreed to pay $430 million, $430 million that fraudulently promoted a jog, one particular drug for unapproved use and include was a criminal fine of $240 million. in 2002, pfizer agreed to pay 49 million to settle charges that a subsidiary defrauded the medicaid program by overcharging for lipitor. huge fines. johnson & johnson was charged -- the texas attorney general charged johnson & johnson with kickbacks to texas health officials. johnson johnson. glaxo smithkline signed a corporate integrity agreement that paid 88 million in civil fines for overcharging medicaid. r roche, $500 million in 1999 criminal fine for leading a worldwide conspiracy to raise and fix prices on allocate market shares for certain items. [inaudible] of and is paid $95 million to settle charges that have violated the false claims act. wyeth joined in to whistle-blower suits against for reciprocal giant wyeth, the drug company failed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in rebates to the medicaid program. you know, i hear a lot of fraud, and i hear

. >> i thought the action the administration had taken was inconsistent with the dictates of pfizer. as a result, i thought the policy was unwise. i think the concerns i expressed then have been remedied by the fact that congress has now -- >> did you think it was a legal? >> i thought it was inconsistent with the statute and unwise as a matter of policy. >> has something happened that has changed your opinion that would make it hard for you to simply stay we did say that what the president said was that it was illegal? >> i do not think so. who >> it sounds a mild compared to a very clear principle here which is not only that this has to do with the scope of the law but the underlying constitutional issue which people believe that if this statute is that explicit that is unconstitutional for the president and illegal for him to override the expressed will of the congress. >> i am not sure if i used the term illegal. i have used the term inconsistent. >> that may be. i would hope you would use the word illegal now. i sent a letter to the president's and that the administration would

you're chairman of economic and buzzers said -- economic and pfizer's made another statement. >> -- economic advisers made another statement. >> we know the african-american and latino unemployment rates are higher than the national average consistently. if the economy as a whole is doing poorly, you know the african-american community is going to be doing poorly. they will be hit even harder. the best thing i can do for the african-american or latino or asian community is to get the economy as a whole moving. hold on one second. let me into the question. if i do not do that, i will not be able to help anybody. that is the first priority. it is true that in certain inner-city communities, the unemployment rate was very high before the recession. the letters available for people to enter into the job market are even worse. we are interested in looking at proven programs that help people on a pathway to jobs. there is a reason why right before father's day of went to a program here in washington which has a proven track record of taking young, mostly minority people, some of whom have graduate

a broad made to a moral and pass more than once like what you said you have two of the pfizer you'll never be allowed and. you have to show a sincere interest they understand when someone is trying to come in and get a quote. i was able to successfully convey i was in seriously interested in their agreements with the pakistani state. this individual was very close with osama, a former pilot in the pakistani air force. he would be the introduction to gazi he was a checkered past with the person to be introduced to the sheik that was the head honcho of this jihadi group that daniel pearl tried to me when he was abducted. he said of pearl i have talked to him and he said he will not meet you. end of issue. as he says to me i will go talk to gazi by say gazi is off limits i do not want to hear you're going behind my back because i told daniel pearl this and you saw what happened. i said jack plays. this is the introduction by about four sure to 20 will be way nestor at -- nastier and scarier but it turns out gazi looks and behavior in many ways like the jerry garcia big beard, long curls

have -- i hope i get across is what we've seen in britain is that concentration of the proxy and pfizer reaffirms has caused a sort of one-size-fits-all solution to take hold and i think it's better to have a flexible approach, compensation committees should have the flexibility to design compensation as appropriate for their own businesses. i also worry about the possibility that say on paper at minimize the ability to change compensation as required by major changes in markets and events in midstream between the annual ad buys revokes and say on pay. i also worry about the effect on say on pay and severance packages and ability to negotiate so-called golden handshake to facilitate an emergency acquisition even if you do a vote sometimes negotiations happen overnight with respect to negotiating acquisitions and i think those agreements are very important. sometimes they have to be approved quickly, not in time to do a shareholder advisory vote. >> thank. >> the chair notes some members have additional questions for the panel which they may wish to submit in writing. without objection t

home and connecticut said they could build a big economic different the was going to support the pfizer pharmaceutical giant. in that case it was clear both sides went into the argument not only hoping to win this litigation between these parties but to establish a larger principle and so in that sense i would say the supreme court arguments given how few there are, given what the court is willing to hear almost every case has a secondary in polls the lawyers are going to pursue. it isn't often quite as blatant as it was in pc. >> tell about televising supreme court proceedings. you mentioned in bush v. gore one of the interesting things was as soon as the case was over yet to the audio recordings being made available to the public there's a great deal of public interest in that case, so what would you say about why are the justices reluctant to have their proceedings televised, and along those lines what kind of impact would it have on the justices in the oral arguments and attorneys presenting their advocacy? >> this is the case i argued before, the supreme court one by one, justice b

connecticut, so that they could build a big new economic development that was going to support the pfizer pharmaceutical giant. in that case it was very clear that both sides went into that argument not only hoping to win this litigation between these parties but to establish a larger principle. and so in that sense, paul, i would say supreme court arguments given how few there are anymore, given the limited scope of what the courts are willing to hear almost every case has a secondary impulse that the lawyers are going to pursue. it isn't often quite as blatant in casey. >> charles, let me ask you about televising supreme court proceedings. you mentioned that in bush versus gore, one of the interesting things was that as soon as the case was over, you had the audio recordings being made available to the public. there is a great deal of public interest in that case. so what -- what would you say then about why are the justices reluctant to have their proceedings televised and along those lines, what kind of impact would have it on the justices in oral arguments and the attorneys who are p

by the way there is a very obscure federal court that is called the pfizer review court, the foreign intelligence surveillance act come in reviews court that has won case review the entire history that goes back 21978 and it was during the bush administration. this particular court held that there were these inherent presidential authority is and that price the could not encroach on the power of the president so we will see what president obama sometime a say on this issue. and finally i would just say and his press conference just recently april 29, the president was essentially asked a question by chip reid colleague concerning, we know the ticking time bomb scenario means whether in that kind of extreme case whether he might be willing to consider some technique that might be known as torture and it was quite interesting to me in the answer to this question, a multi-party question for my two questions adding together in this was the second of its you and i have a transcript we can pull out later, to get the exact wording, but what was striking to me was he said that at no time so