In The News

Another federal bailout of top banks in the United States cannot be allowed to happen again, said U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI) during an April 10 U.S. House Financial Services Committee hearing.

The hearing brought in the chief executive officers (CEOs) of seven of the nation’s largest financial institutions to answer tough questions that committee members asked on behalf of American consumers. 

“As someone who was publicly opposed to the bailouts that happened under Dodd-Frank, I was not in Congress at the time, but I am dealing with the echo effects of it yet today. I was very frustrated to see that and having to explain to constituents about why that had gone on. I have had the chance to express to at least a couple of you personally that you cannot count on this Congressman to ever allow that to happen again, or to vote for a situation like that,” said Rep. Huizenga, ranking member of the U.S. House Financial Services Subcommittee on Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship, and Capital Markets.

During his time, Rep. Huizenga posed questions to the witnesses, who included Michael Corbat, CEO of Citigroup; Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO at JP Morgan Chase & Co.; James Gorman, chairman and CEO at Morgan Stanley; Brian Moynihan, chairman and CEO at Bank of America; Ronald O’Hanley, president and CEO of State Street Corp.; Charles Scharf, chairman and CEO at the Bank of New York Mellon; and David Solomon, chairman and CEO at Goldman Sachs.

Among numerous questions, Rep. Huizenga asked the CEOs about their capitalization, protecting American taxpayers from another bailout, and what impact Brexit would have for their operations in Europe, as well as for the global economy.

“Part of the action here and what we are trying to do is to make sure it never happens again on anybody’s watch,” the congressman said, referring to his intentions to protect his home state constituents and other Americans from another financial bailout.

And regarding the capitalization of banks, Rep. Huizenga asked the CEOs if they were adequately capitalized, properly sized and stable “so that you can survive without hard-working American taxpayer dollars having to be put back into the system and have the taxpayer on the hook?”

All of the bank executives testifying before the committee responded yes.

This article originally appeared in the Ripon Advance on April 12, 2019.