Press Release

Hensarling Says Jobless Recovery Is Not A Recovery

The government’s continued bailouts now hamper our economic recovery and threaten to institutionalize us as a bailout nation

WASHINGTON, DC — Congressman Jeb Hensarling, the top Republican on the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit and the lone Member of Congress on the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP) for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) delivered the following opening statement at today’s hearing of the House Financial Services Committee:

“Over the past couple of weeks, the media has been replete with one year anniversary stories of the historic bailouts or economic recovery actions by our federal government. Before deciding on how we best proceed with financial market reform, we would do well to learn the lessons of the good, the bad, and the ugly results of these actions.”

“First the good, within months of intervention there is no doubt that credit spreads returned to more normal levels. Equity markets have clearly risen appreciably and the panic we felt last September has subsided.”

“The bad, our economy continues to contract. In the face of massive government intervention, too much private capital remains on the side lines. After the passage of the Obama Administration’s $1.2 trillion stimulus bill, 3 million of our fellow country men lost their jobs and our nation suffers from the highest unemployment rate in a quarter of a century. And I remind all, there is no such thing as a jobless recovery. No jobs, no recovery.”

“Now the ugly, this orgy of spending has brought our nation its first trillion dollar deficit and our national debt will triple in the next 10 years. According to the Special Inspector General for the TARP program the tax payer is now on the hook for up to $23.7 trillion dollars, or $202, 940 per household.”

“The government’s continued bailouts of Fannie, Freddie, AIG, Chrysler, GM, the list goes on now hamper our economic recovery and threaten to institutionalize us as a bailout nation, with no visible exit strategy in sight.”

“There remains a huge difference between adding emergency liquidity to a panicked financial system and bailing out individual non-bank firms fortunate enough to be designated too big to fail. Under the latter policy the big get bigger, the small get smaller, the taxpayer gets poorer and our children get saddled with the mother of all debts. Clearly there is a better way, reforms are needed. The best way to end taxpayer bailouts is to end taxpayer bailouts.”
 

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