Political Quotes

“Well, these things are critically important. One more bill that I want to take up before I turn to what we can do next is a bill that dealt with the fundamental reason that the American economy crashed in 2007-8, and that was the meltdown of Wall Street. The extraordinary greed, the games that were being played, the gamble that was being made with our money by Wall Street led to the collapse. Obviously, the housing industry, the subprime mortgage market, the collateralized debt obligations, the derivatives, all of those games were being played on Wall Street. For more than a year--almost 2 years now--this House, the Democrats, have fought to rein in Wall Street; to force Wall Street to operate with rigorous rules that hold them accountable and responsible. We finally succeeded late last year to pass a Wall Street Reform Act. It went over to the Senate. It took almost 9 months for the Senate to gestate a bill. Conference committee took place. The conferees met. The bill came to this floor. And we added a few provisions to the--the bill came to the floor and it passed with provisions that were added during the conference committee. A good bill. It does rein in Wall Street, does set clear rules. It makes it impossible for a bank to fail and for taxpayers to bail out a bank--a big bank. There are things in it that went beyond that. Providing opportunities for small banks. Some of the additional benefit to small banks.…”