- March 14, 2023
Lankford Sounds Alarm over Biden’s Handling of SVB Crisis
WASHINGTON, DC – Senator James Lankford (R-OK) today addressed the Senate about some of the areas he sees that the Biden Administration and President Biden’s policies are failing Oklahoma and the entire country. Lankford’s remarks come on the heels of the Silicon Valley Bank failure over the weekend and the Biden Administration’s rush to bail out millionaires who bank there by assessing fees on banks across the country, including Oklahoma.
Lankford also discussed the Biden Administration’s head-scratching approach to solving a 5,000-per-day illegal border crossing issue with a 500-per month asylum hearing. He questioned President Biden’s recent $6.8 trillion budget proposal, compared to a $4.4 trillion spending proposal in the last year before COVID. He also called out Biden’s failure to promote “buy American” when it comes to US energy and batteries.
Excerpt on the Biden Administration’s Reaction to the Silicon Valley Bank Failure
Over the past five days we watched the collapse of the Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank in New York, a big bank in San Francisco, a much smaller bank in New York. Both of them we’ve now had the FDIC step in, and they’re going to save every person in the bank and to be able to make sure they’re whole. Now that’s very different than what’s typical. Most Americans know you’re insured up to $250,000, but the Biden Administration stepped in and said, ‘Oh, no, everyone’s going to be kept 100 percent whole.’
The comment that’s come out has been, ‘Well we’re going to make sure no taxpayers have to be able to cover this though.’ And then if you listen closely, the next statement is, ‘It’s going to come from an assessment on the banks instead.’
Now let me tell you what that means. One of the wealthiest banks in America, that is mostly millionaires that actually bank there—in fact to show that, 90 percent of the depositors in Silicon Valley Bank, their deposits exceed $250,000. Okay, 90 percent—that’s not normal for a bank. In that bank in San Francisco, all of their depositors are going to be bailed out and the way that they’re going to be bailed out is, there’s going to be a special—what they’re calling an ‘assessment’—on banks across the country.
So let me tell you what’s happening in the next few months. Banks in Oklahoma in rural towns are about to pay a special fee to be able to bail out millionaires in San Francisco. Now, what Oklahoma banks and bankers had to do with that bank failure in San Francisco, I have no idea.
But the comments made over and over again: no taxpayer is going to be affected by this. I’m sure my bankers would be glad to know they don’t pay taxes anymore apparently, and I’m sure every person that banks there will be interested to know that when their bank fees go up and when their interest rates go down, to be able to cover what happened in San Francisco.
Now, listen. I don’t want to see a contagion of banks either, but let’s be honest, what’s really happening is a backdoor tax increase on Americans, just not using the IRS to do it. It’s using community banks to do it all over the country, to charge a quick higher fee, which they know will mean a higher fee to the people that are members of their bank, and that’s how it’s going to get covered—rather than the typical way this would get covered by actually taking that bank, actually doing an auction, auctioning it off to other banks to be able to take it in. I look at it and say you can’t make this stuff up in some ways, to be able to say no taxpayer’s going to be affected, but quietly taxpayers across the country are going to be affected by this.
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