On the recordJuly 14, 2010
Roughly 2 years ago, our Nation suffered a catastrophe. It was not a hurricane or an earthquake. It was no act of God. It was a man-made disaster, manufactured in the boiler rooms of unscrupulous mortgage lenders and the offices of pay-for-hire credit rating agencies, in the headquarters of sluggish regulators, and then vastly expanded in its negative impact in the boardrooms of Wall Street financial firms. The financial crisis they all helped create has cost millions of Americans their jobs, their homes, and their financial security. It has endangered businesses large and small. It continues to weigh down our economy today. It required trillions of dollars of government aid just to keep the crisis from sliding into a depression. Addressing the causes of this crisis, in an effort to ensure that it is not repeated, is our very serious obligation. We now have before us, months in the making, something that constitutes our best efforts to carry out that obligation. The legislation before us contains many important provisions. But it is, in sum, an attempt to build a firewall between the worst high-risk excesses of Wall Street on the one hand and the jobs and homes and futures of ordinary Americans on the other. I strongly support the Dodd-Frank bill and encourage our colleagues to do the same.
