2010 Kentucky Senate Debates: on Budget & Economy

Jack Conway: Against TARP bailouts due to lack of accountability

CONWAY: I support some of President Obama's agenda. The stimulus, 1/3 of it went to tax cuts. 1/3 of it went to keeping the jobs of police and firefighters. And 1/3 supposedly went to shovel-ready projects where the administration hasn't done that great a job. Actually, I wouldn't have voted for the bailouts. There weren't enough accountability in them. We had people getting bonuses after getting the bailouts. And on health care, look, we've got 654,000 Kentuckians getting health care for the first time as a result of this bill. What I'm not for, is the $2,000 deductible and taking our health care system back to a pre-World War II system, which is what Rand Paul's on the record as having said. So I'd like to fix health care. He wants to repeal it. And I think that's a stark difference.

Rand Paul: Bank bailout was bad policy & helped no banks in KY

PAUL: But here's the problem. You say you want new lending from small banks, but you support the banking regulation bill. The problem was with government banks--Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac--bad policy at the Federal Reserve caused the recession, caused the credit crunch. But yet Jack supports--President Obama supports--the new banking regulations, which every bank in Kentucky will tell you it wasn't our problem. No banks failed in Kentucky. But it's much harder to get a loan in Kentucky now.