| 10/7/2009 12:00:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | | Clarification - October 7, 2009 | U.S. Rep. Baron Hill, D-Indiana, voted against of the $700 billion bank bailout. His position was not stated in a story Tuesday.
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Originally Published October 6, 2009
Mr. Hill Goes to Hollywood
Congressman has role in Michael Moore documentary
Sara Denhart
Courier Staff Writer
Over the weekend, Congressman Baron Hill, D-Indiana, made his debut on the silver screen in filmmaker Michael Moore's latest documentary, "Capitalism: A Love Story."
According to Moore's Web site, the film explores the root causes of the global economic meltdown and takes a comical look at the corporate and political shenanigans that culminated in what Moore describes as "the biggest robbery in the history of this country." The robbery Moore refers to is the $700 billion bank bailout package that was passed by Congress. The bailout will eventually be paid for by the taxpayers and future generations.
In the movie and its trailers, the film features a clip where Hill is on his wireless phone talking to his wife, Betty, when Moore approaches to ask questions about the bailout.
"You know who Michael Moore is, don't you, Betty?" Hill asks his wife on the phone during the movie. "The film director. He's filming me right now."
Katie Moreau, communication specialist in Hill's Washington, D.C., office, said Moore was standing outside the Capitol trying to talk to members of Congress who all wear a membership pin on their lapels.
Moreau said Hill's office is on the west side of the Capitol, and the congressman walks around where Moore was standing at the end of the day of work.
"(Hill) didn't plan on being in this film," Moreau said. "He's been busy working and he took time to be a dutiful husband and talk to his wife on the phone."
During the movie, Moore asks Hill why Congress passed a bailout package for private financial institutions that allows no questions to be asked of how the banks spent their bailout funding and explores how the Democrats agreed to pass a bill that originated with the Republican Party.
"Baron likes to have time to process and digest what he's voting on," Moreau said.
Congress originally declined the banking industry's bailout package, but a few days later passed another version submitted by former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Henry M. Paulson. Paulson also was the chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, an investment banking company, before serving as treasury secretary.
"I got home on a Friday. Everything was just fine. I called back after my plane landed in Indiana, and all the sudden, we got this crisis on our hands," Hill said to Moore, explaining how the bailout passed.
Moore talks about the scare tactics used with the Dow Jones Industrial Average falling, the timing of the bailout bill so close to mid-term elections and the connections the banking industries have to Congress and the federal government.
Moreau said Hill has not had a chance to see the whole film because he has been working on the appeal to the Federal Emergency Management Agency's decision to not provide funding to residents in Southern Indiana who were affected by wind and flood damage in August.
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