Oklahoma Congressman Mike Synar tried to rally environmentalists and raise fees, but senators from the Western United States successfully blocked their proposals. Congress wrote a new farm bill in 1995. Clinton vetoed it on December 6, 1995 because it would "eliminate the safety net" and "provide windfall payments to producers when prices are high, but not protect family farm income would prices or low." Deregulation of banking Clinton signed the bipartisan Financial Services Modernization Act or GLBA in 1999. It allowed banks, insurance companies and investment houses to merge and thus repealed the Glass-Steagall Act which had been in place since 1932. It also prevented further regulation of risky financial derivatives. His deregulation of finance (both tacit and overt through GLBA) was criticized as a contributing factor to the Great Recession. While he disputes that claim, he expressed regret and conceded that in hindsight he would have vetoed the bill, mainly because it excluded risky financial derivatives from regulation, not because it removed the long-standing Glass-Steagall barrier between investment and depository banking. In his view, even if he had vetoed the bill, the Congress would have overridden the veto, as it had nearly unanimous support. Politifact in 2015 rated Clinton's claim that repeal of Glass-Steagall did not have "anything to do with the financial crash [of 2008]" as "Mostly True," with the caveat that his claim focused on removing the separation of investment and depository banking and not the broader exclusion of risky financial instruments (derivatives) from regulation. These derivatives, such as the credit default swaps at the core of the 2008 crisis, were basically used to insure mortgage-related securities, with AIG the major provider. This encouraged more mortgage-related lending, as AIG theoretically stood behind the mortgage securities used to finance the mortgage lending. However, AIG was not effectively regulated and did not have the financial resources to make good on its insurance promises when housing defaults began and investors began to claim the insurance payments on mortgage securities in default. AIG collapsed spectacularly in September 2008, and became a conduit for a large government bailout (over $100 billion) to many banks globally to which AIG owed money, one of the darkest episodes in the crisis. Economic results summary Overall Clinton presided over the following economic results, measured from January 1993 to December 2000, with alternate dates as indicated: Average real GDP growth of 3.8%, compared to average growth of