The phrase "too big to fail" was coined to defend bailing out one bank in 1984
When Continental Illinois National Bank teetered on collapse in 1984, federal regulators rescued it rather than risk a chain reaction through the banks that had lent to it. Testifying to Congress, Representative Stewart McKinney complained regulators had created a new class of institution too big to fail — a phrase that defined the 2008 crisis response two decades later.