Santorum Campaign Press Release - No Wonder Mitt Romney Supported the Wall Street Bailout

Verona, PA - This afternoon former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney returned to his Wall Street roots to raise money after his campaign's defeat yesterday in Alabama and Mississippi. Among those hosting the event are former executives with AIG and Goldman Sachs, recipients of billions of dollars in taxpayer bailout money that Romney advocated for.

Hogan Gidley, National Communications Director, said: "Mitt Romney proudly supported the Wall Street Bailout that rewarded the reckless behavior of Wall Street Insiders - at the expense of the American taxpayer. Now that his campaign is looking to get some fast cash - he returned to the very people who benefited from the bailout - that Romney supported."

MITT ROMNEY SUPPORTS THE WALL STREET BAILOUT

"Secretary [Hank] Paulson's TARP prevented a systemic collapse of the national financial system." (Mitt Romney, "No Apologies: The Case For American Greatness," per - James Pethokoukis, "Mitt Romney's TARP Problem," Reuters, March 4, 2010)

MITT ROMNEY AND HIS CONTINUED DEFENSE OF THE WALL STREET BAILOUTS

"My experience tells me that we were on the precipice, and we could have had a complete meltdown of our entire financial system, wiping out all the savings of the American people. So action had to be taken." (Mitt Romney, Bloomberg Republican Presidential Debate, October 11, 2011)

ROMNEY'S WALL STREET DONORS AND THEIR BAILOUT

"The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that about $50 billion of more than $173 billion that the U.S. government has poured into American International Group Inc. since last fall has been paid to at least two dozen U.S. and foreign financial institutions. The newspaper reported that some of the banks paid by AIG since the insurer started getting taxpayer funds were: Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Deutsche Bank AG, Merrill Lynch, Societe Generale, Calyon, Barclays Plc, Rabobank, Danske, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Banco Santander, Morgan Stanley, Wachovia, Bank of America, and Lloyds Banking Group." (Toni Reinhold, "Who Got AIG's Bailout Billions?", Reuters, March 8, 2009)

Goldman Sachs received $5.55 billion from the government in fall of 2008 as payment for then-worthless securities it held in AIG. Goldman had already hedged its risk that the securities would go bad. It had entered into agreements to spread the risk with the 32 entities named in Friday's report. Overall, Goldman Sachs received a $12.9 billion payout from the government's bailout of AIG, which was at one time the world's largest insurance company. Goldman Sachs also revealed to the Senate Finance Committee that it would have received $2.3 billion if AIG had gone under. Other large financial institutions, such as Citibank, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley, sold Goldman Sachs protection in the case of AIG's collapse. Those institutions did not have to pay Goldman Sachs after the government stepped in with tax money. (Karen Mracek and Thomas Beaumont, "Goldman Reveals Where Bailout Cash Went," Des Moines Register, July 26, 2010)