Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke might be caught in what "some people" might call a lie, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said Thursday.
Issa predicted that the testimony of former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and other officials before Congress would contradict Bernanke's claims this morning that he did not threaten Bank of America to follow through with a deal to acquire Merrill Lynch in late 2008.
"When Paulson comes in in two weeks, and perhaps others, I think what we're going to see is what some people would call a contradiction, others would call a lie, some people would call a failure to report, others would call a cover-up," Issa told the Fox Business Network in a telephone interview.
Issa, the ranking member of the Oversight Committee, had accused Bernanke on Wednesday of orchestrating a "cover up" of details from regulators and shareholders that might have halted a BoA-Merrill deal.
"But no matter what, those definitions, once you get past the subtlety of those definitions, those are real events that should not have happened," Issa said.
Issa also added that while Bernanke may not have made explicit threats to Bank of America, "they led to results of real threats being issued."
"He may not remember these things, but they led to results of real threats being issued," Issa said.
The Treasury Department will provide language to Congress outlining its proposed reforms of the financial regulatory system within the next few days, Secretary Tim Geithner said Thursday.
Speaking after a meeting of the "working group" to overhaul financial regulations, Geithner said that the Obama administration would start working with relevant congressional officials to begin crafting legislation for the regulatory overhaul.
"We expect to provide the Congress within the next few days legislative language for this important, new consumer protection agency," Geithner told reporters.
President Obama announced the initiative to reshape regulations earlier this month, and House and Senate committee heads said that they'd hoped to begin holding hearings on the issue late this summer or early in the fall.
The Treasury secretary said that the administration would lay out its proposals on other core elements, such as new capital requirements and supervisory authority, a bit later.
"We're going to move forward with detailed legislative proposals on the other remaining core parts of the agenda in the coming weeks and months," he said.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke denied Thursday that he acted in a way to force Bank of America (BoA) to take over the troubled Merrill Lynch, maintaining he only advised BoA of the possible effects of the deal.
"I did not tell Bank of America's management that the Federal Reserve would take action against the board or management if they decided to proceed with the MAC," Bernanke said in testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Bernanke referred to BoA's last-minute worries about the Merrill deal, in which the former threatened to invoke the "Material Adverse Event Clause" (MAC) to nix a final deal after Merrill incurred heavy losses in the 4th quarter of 2008.
"Moreover, I did not instruct anyone to indicate to Bank of America that the Federal Reserve would take any particular action under those circumstances," Bernanke added.
Bernanke's leadership at the Fed has come under fire from congressional Republicans, who have accused the Fed of having inappropriately acted to force the BoA-Merrill deal.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the ranking member of the Oversight Committee, alleged Wednesday that Bernanke had orchestrated a "cover-up" by deliberately withholding information about the merger from shareholders and federal regulators.
Bernanke also denied the "cover-up" allegation in his prepared testimony on Thursday.
"Neither I nor any member of the Federal Reserve ever directed, instructed, or advised Bank of America to withhold from public disclosure any information relating to Merrill Lynch, including its losses, compensation packages or bonuses, or any other related matter," he said.
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett heaped praise on Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke Wednesday, saying the U.S. couldn't do better than to have Bernanke on board during this recession.
Buffett lent Bernanke some key support as rumors have flown that President Obama might reappoint the depression economist to another term at the Fed, and as Congress considers granting Bernanke much more aggressive tools to regulate the financial sector.
"I don't see how you could do better," Buffett said in an interview on CNBC. "He has taken decisive action at a time when really decisive action was needed."
Buffett offered praise for the Bush administration's officials' actions during the financial meltdown last fall.
"They got us through a position where, if you had different people in those jobs, I'm not sure you would have gotten through," he said.
Buffett also heaped praise on President Obama's top economic officials, including Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and National Economic Council Chairman Larry Summers, but said that Bernanke is key to that "troika."
Buffett offered measured praise for the current administration's proposed overhaul of the financial regulatory system, though he worried Obama may be losing some focus on the current economic woes in the U.S.
"They're doing things, but it takes a while to have an effect. You can't produce a baby in a month by getting nine women pregnant," he said. "They've turned their sights to other problems, but this problem is not yet solved."
The healthcare bill crafted by House Democrats will require a new $800 billion in taxes, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) alleged Wednesday.
Ryan, the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, asserted that a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) "scoring" of the House Democrats' bill would show a need for much higher taxes.
"We will get the score, we think, from the Democrats after the July 4th recess, meaning in about a week and a few days," he said on CNBC. "They're going to need about $800 billion at least in higher taxes -- we're probably going to see a little bit more than that."
Republicans have hammered away at the majority party's plans for both its cost and what they say is expansiveness. Ryan is one of the few GOP lawmakers, though, to allege a specific amount of new taxes needed.
Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) said this morning on CNBC as well that the House Democrats' plan would include more Americans than the Senate version, which the CBO initially priced around $1.6 trillion. Pallone said the House bill would cover more for less of a cost -- paid for primarily to cuts in reimbursement rates and other savings.
Ryan said that the Democratic bill may need to be paid for by a "grab bag" of different tax increases, or other specific taxes.
The chairwoman of Congress's bailout oversight board slammed big bank Citigroup on Wednesday for raising salaries at a hefty clip while receiving government funds.
"I just have to say: These guys just don't seem to get it," said Elizabeth Warren, the head of the congressional oversight board for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), during an appearance on Bloomberg News.
Citi announced today that it would increase base salaries for many of its employees as a way to attract top talent. According to the AP, some Citi employees may see their salaries increased by as much as 50 percent.
"They're taking taxpayer dollars in order to keep this business alive, and yet they think that, when Americans are out of work, when people are struggling, when this comes out of taxpayers' pockets, that they can double their salaries?" Warren incredulously asked.
Warren has been an aggressive advocate of curtailing compensation for employees of companies receiving financial assistance from the government -- an idea the Obama administration partially endorsed when it announced new rules for compensation structuring and bonuses for executives at firms on federal support.
"This is more about: Does anyone really understand what's going on here?" Warren added.
Warren appeared before the House Financial Services Committee this morning to discuss financial regulation reform and enhancing consumer protections.
Update, 2:06 p.m.: Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd echoed Warren's language in a short statement about the salaries on Wednesday afternoon.
The healthcare bill the House sends into conference with the Senate version will include a public option for consumers, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) flatly stated Wednesday.
"As you well know, once the House passes this bill -- and we will, and it include the public option for healthcare -- then it will go into conference," Rangel said during an interview on Bloomberg News.
But Rangel seemed a bit less certain, however, about the version that would emerge from conference with the Senate.
"What happens there? We don't know," he said.
"They have not shared their views with us," he explained earlier in the interview.
The Senate is said to be mulling a version of the bill that may not include a version of a public (or "government-run") option for consumers in lieu of a federally-mandated establishment of healthcare cooperatives. That compromise had been floated to bring more centrist Democrats and Republicans onboard for a final version of the bill.
It will take three or four Republican senators' votes for the Senate to achieve a "bipartisan" healthcare reform bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday.
Reid said that he would continue to work to pick up GOP votes for a reform package, sidestepping a question on whether or not he'd seek to use budgetary rules to avoid a filibuster and pass healthcare reform by a simple majority vote.
"We want to do a bipartisan bill. That's not saying we need half the caucus to come with us," Reid said after Senate Democrats' weekly luncheon. "We need about three or four Republican senators to join with us, to have a bipartisan bill."
Reid said that the caucus luncheon spent most of its time focused on the healthcare bill, which has been steadily making its way through preliminary stages in both the Senate Finance and Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committees.
"And there was not a single senator said, 'Forget working with these clowns. Let's just go ahead and go to the reconciliation,'" Reid said. "Everyone there, liberals, moderates, conservatives in my caucus said, let's try to come up with a bipartisan bill."
"We're going to continue to go down that road," Reid said.
Senate Republicans want a do-over when it comes to healthcare reform legislation.
Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) argued Tuesday that the healthcare bill crafted by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) committee was so fatally flawed such that it should be tossed by Senate leaders to start crafting a new bill from scratch.
"We've now had a week to consider to consider the Kennedy bill in the Health and Education Committee," Alexander, the chairman of the Senate GOP Conference, said after Republicans' weekly luncheon. "And it is so flawed that it can't be fixed, and we need to start over."
Alexander said that Republicans wanted a healthcare bill by the end of the year, echoing Democrats' talking points on the legislation -- albeit with a different legislative outcome in mind.
"That's what happens when you have a partisan bill," Alexander added. "I mean, we know how to have a bipartisan bill on health care or any other area, and that's a group of us sit down together, share ideas and put something together. That's not what happened here."
The Tennessee lawmaker also disputed a New York Times poll that said Americans strongly desired a public (or "government-run") option on the final healthcare package, saying that the questions were asked in a "one-sided" way.
The compromise on healthcare is still moving toward a cooperative model, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.) said Tuesday, rejecting reports that he'd moved sharply to support a public option in healthcare reform legislation.
Conrad pushed back against reports that he and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.D.) had moved closer to a deal to bring the centrist Conrad on board to support a public (or "government-run") option for consumers.
Media outlets had quoted Conrad as saying he could support elements of a public plan, but Conrad said he had been referring to his proposed model of establishing consumer-run cooperatives as a compromise between Democrats and Republicans.
"What is wrong is the interpretation of what that means," Conrad said of how he qas quoted during an appearance on MSNBC. "What Senator Schumer was discussing was changes to the co-op plan. He wasn't talking about a pure public option. He was talking about changes to the co-op plan."
Conrad said that the co-op model was "probably the preferred option" in terms of what will go in the final version of healthcare legislation, and that Schumer has been discussing building on -- not rejecting -- that model.
"What we're trying to do is capture the strengths of public option, that is a nonprofit insurance provider, but also meet the objections of those who are against anything that's government controlled," Conrad said. "So what we're trying to do is have the strengths of a nonprofit intermediary, a cooperative, something that's well known."
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