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Washington, DC—Today, Congressman Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), a senior member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and member of the Joint Economic Committee, introduced the Accountability from Corporations for Outlays Under TARP (ACCOUNT) Act, which would require institutions receiving assistance under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to report expenditures on corporate junkets, executive compensation and bonuses, and other employee perks.
“When these companies come to us on their knees begging for money and then turn around and continue the partying on Wall Street with the corporate junkets and million-dollar bonuses, it is nothing less than a slap in the face of the American taxpayers,” Congressman Cummings said. “The American people are now shareholders in these companies, and it is only right that we know how our money is being managed and spent.”
Congressman Cummings has been a leading critic of profligate spending by companies that have received TARP funding—particularly expenditures on executive compensation and bonuses, corporate junkets, and sports sponsorships—and is concerned about the lack of transparency with regard to how these institutions are spending taxpayer dollars.
Under the ACCOUNT Act, any company receiving TARP funds would be required to prominently disclose on its website its expenditures on corporate events and junkets, bonuses and compensation, corporate jet use and executive travel, club memberships, and lobbying. The information would be updated monthly.
“While my neighbors in Baltimore continue to lose their jobs and their homes, it becomes increasingly difficult for them to understand why AIG is taking their hard-earned money and then giving away more than a billion dollars in bonuses or why Citigroup is taking this money and then spending $400 million to put its name on a baseball stadium in New York,” Congressman Cummings said. “This bill is an important first step in bringing transparency and accountability to the distribution of TARP funds.”
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