Prober Urges Focus on Rich S&L; Executives

Officials trying to bail out the fund that insures deposits in federal savings and loan institutions should go after the “yacht-owning” executives of those institutions who contributed to the problem and get rid of unsound institutions, the chairman of a Senate banking subcommittee said today.

“We ought to be seeing to it that those people who are driving around in Jaguars and have big yachts and belong to fancy country clubs come up to the bar now and pay up,” Sen. Alan J. Dixon (D-Ill.) said on “CBS This Morning.”

“There are a lot of people that were executives of thrifts around the country that are personally liable and we ought to be getting after them,” said Dixon, who heads the banking subcommittee on consumer and regulatory affairs.

“We ought to invoke safety and soundness rules against states that are liberalizing investment laws for thrifts and endangering the security of those institutions,” he said.

“And we ought to be putting some money into the (Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp.) fund and reducing the number of thrifts in the country, getting rid of the bad ones and supporting the good ones.”

Asked if there was any chance Congress would approve a proposal floated by the Bush Administration to charge depositors at banks and S&Ls; a fee of 30 cents per $100 deposited to help pay for insurance, Dixon said “none whatsoever.”