You state, Mr. Secretary, repeatedly that the status quo is not acceptable because things are changing every day in the marketplace.

Let's put a cop on that beat so that the spectacular failure of consumer protection at the root of this mess is never repeated.

With decision-making authority dispersed to the Board and Reserve Banks, who will be accountable to Congress for the systemic risk regulation function as the 'system' cannot appear to testify right here before Congress?

We cannot afford the status quo. We must act now to put a plan in place that protects consumers and investors, saves jobs, and ensures the integrity of our financial system.

the most significant thing many of us will do while serving in the U.S. Senate.

We must do everything we can to not only ensure the safety and soundness of our financial system, but also its competitive standing in the world.

Stronger consumer protection could have stopped this crisis before it started.

I really worry today if what we are seeing is kind of a dead cat bounce where all we are doing is pushing so much borrowed liquidity into our marketplace that we are just setting ourselves up for the next cliff.

I personally believe this represents a grossly inflated view of the Fed's expertise.

I do not believe either in the mortgage area or in the core things that threaten the stability of the system it is fair to say that where those things were most acute, they were institutions that were under the Fed's supervision.

Accountability at the Fed--Mr. Secretary, the Federal Reserve System was not designed to carry out the systemic risk oversight mission the administration proposes to give it.

To rebuild confidence in our financial system, both here at home and around the world, we must reconstruct our regulatory framework.