Those who work hard and follow the rules are upset at the Wall Street titans whose greed led them to flaunt the rules and create the current credit crisis.  Because Congressman Kanjorski shares the concerns of average Americans about these problems, he worked as a leader on the House Financial Services Committee to make sure that the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act protected taxpayers' dollars, workers' paychecks, and retirees' pensions.

Money and credit are the lifeblood of an economy, and during the last year the credit markets have become increasingly clogged as financial institutions' trust in one another has worn away because of the troubled mortgage assets that they hold.

• Without access to credit, businesses would not have the money they need to pay their workers, and workers would lose their jobs.  It would also result in significant drops in the prices of stocks and bonds held by pensions and retirement plans.

• A shutdown of the credit system would also result in difficulty in getting a loan to go to school, get a mortgage to buy a home, obtain an advance to pay for emergency needs like a car repair or a medical procedure, and borrow money to expand a business.

After pursuing in recent months a number of makeshift fixes at several financial companies to address specific problems resulting from the credit crisis, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke determined on September 18 that they needed even more power to repair the problems in the credit markets and restore confidence.

• Because government inaction previously contributed greatly to the Great Depression, they advised the Congress to take quick, bold action now.  Shortly thereafter Secretary Paulson sent to the Congress a 3-page legislative proposal to create a program of $700 billion to permit the government to purchase the troubled assets of financial institutions.

• In working to negotiate a revised plan, Congressman Kanjorski and his colleagues consulted many reputable, world-class economists who agreed about the need for a large-scale government intervention and advised the Congress to act on the Treasury's plan.

Congressman Kanjorski had very strong concerns about the initial Treasury plan as it would have essentially provided an open-ended, blank check without needed controls. Fortunately, we live in a democracy, and as the Chairman of the Financial Services Capital Markets Subcommittee, Congressman Kanjorski worked to fix this plan as much as possible and as quickly as possible before the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act became law.

Congressman Kanjorski, first and foremost, wanted to make sure that the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act helped to protect the people living and working on Main Street, not to bail out the businesses and banks operating on Wall Street.

• As such, Congressman Kanjorski worked with his colleagues to alter the initial Treasury plan in a way that protects taxpayers, limits the financial windfalls of executives at the distressed companies getting help, establishes strong oversight and accountability, provides transparency, limits overall costs, and benefits Americans.

• As a result of Congressman Kanjorski's efforts to address each of these issues, the Congress rejected the initial Treasury proposal of less than 3 pages and produced a revised bill to implement Secretary Paulson's plan of more than 100 pages.

Because taxpayers should not have to pay for the blunders of others, Congressman Kanjorski's first priority for the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act was to protect them in several ways, including forcing the financial industry to pay for the costs of the rescue and providing the money for the program in several installments rather than in one lump sum.

• The new law forces the President to develop a mechanism to make the financial industry reimburse the government for any costs of the troubled asset relief program, if the program results in any losses to taxpayers after five years.

• By providing the government with an equity interest in the entities that it helps, the new law ensures that hard-working Americans will get an ownership interest in the companies that they help, which will allow them to share in future profits after a company recovers.

• Instead of providing the Treasury Secretary with the entire $700 billion up front as first requested, the Congress agreed to provide $250 billion initially, and an additional $100 billion upon a certification by the President of a need for more funds.  The last installment of $350 billion is now subject to Congressional review and disapproval.

• Congressman Kanjorski also worked to ensure that the law prevents unjust enrichment, provides for fair contracting procedures, and minimizes conflicts of interest so that industry insiders who created these problems do not unduly benefit from this program.

• To help protect taxpayers even more, the law works to reduce short-term costs, maximize long-term gains, and establish fair prices for any assets that the government buys.

Corporate executives who made bad decisions should not be allowed to dump their bad assets on the government and then collect millions of dollars. As another priority, Congressman Kanjorski therefore worked to revise the Treasury's initial plan to ensure that the Wall Street fat cats who ask for government assistance do not continue to get fat paychecks.

• The new law works to block the golden parachutes of executives at distressed companies so that these CEOs land just as hard as average workers when they lose their jobs.  The law also requires the Treasury Department to issue rules on limiting excessive pay for the CEOs at the companies assisted by the program.

• Moreover, the new law claws back and recovers big bonuses earned by CEOs as a result of any problems found in the future with faulty and fraudulent financial statements.

• In developing the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, Congressman Kanjorski also prioritized effective oversight, strong accountability, and real transparency.

• The Congressman insisted that the program provide for the real-time disclosure of transactions on the Internet so that the American public can inspect the assets they buy.

• Because we must punish the individuals who committed crimes in the development, advertising, and sale of the financial products that contributed to the credit crisis, Congressman Kanjorski strongly supported adding language to the law to force federal regulators to cooperate with the Federal Bureau of Investigation in its efforts to identify and bring these wrongdoers to justice.

• The Congressman also worked to check the Treasury Secretary's powers by providing legal review of the program in the courts, enhancing Congressional oversight of the program's activities, and creating a number of internal and external watchdogs to examine every decision and transaction under the program.

Because of Congressional efforts, the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act now works to assist American interests, not foreign interests. Financial institutions eligible to participate in this program must be licensed and regulated in the United States.

By requiring the government, as the holder of mortgages and mortgage-backed securities, to do all that it reasonably can to prevent foreclosures through loss mitigation efforts, the new law will also help to keep people in their homes and spur economic recovery by preventing real estate prices from falling further and perhaps even helping home prices to rise.

In order to send an important message to average Americans that their deposits are safe even in today's volatile markets, Congressman Kanjorski supported the Senate's addition at the last minute of a provision to increase the deposit insurance limits at credit unions and banks from $100,000 to $250,000 on a temporary basis.

Like many, however, Congressman Kanjorski was deeply disappointed that the Senate added many unrelated provisions, especially more than $100 billion in unpaid tax cuts. Because this economic crisis demanded immediate action, he decided to vote reluctantly for the bill.

The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act's passage is only the beginning of Congressional work on these issues. More must be done in the long term to revise the oversight of the financial services industry, and the new law requires two separate reports on regulatory modernization, both due in early 2009, to assist the Congress in these efforts.

The urgency of the economic situation and the changes made to the bill by the Congress ultimately helped to attract a large number of diverse supporters for the bill, including the AARP (which represents seniors), the Democratic and Republican governors' associations, the National League of Cities, and the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, in addition to countless other interests.