Political Quotes

“I want to briefly come to the floor to talk about what happened here today. We saw the long arm of Wall Street come to the Senate and reach right into this Chamber. It should not have happened. We all should have learned the lesson as to what Wall Street plunged us into. And the idea that Wall Street could do this, through a number of Republican Senators who objected to our even coming to a vote on the so-called Merkley-Levin amendment, is nothing less than shameful. But that is what happened. We have been going back and forth, a Democrat and a Republican amendment, and it came time for Senator Dodd, who is a cosponsor of Merkley-Levin, to offer this amendment, to bring this up to the floor, and it was rejected. It was rejected by the Republican leadership acting through the manager of the bill. This amendment has been worked for many days. We have attempted very hard, and succeeded in addressing a number of concerns which were raised, but what we insisted upon and will continue to insist upon and will not yield on is our determination that banks not engage in risky bets. Our commercial banks have access to the Fed window. That is taxpayer money. Our commercial banks have access to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. It guarantees that the accounts will be paid. We cannot permit--we cannot allow--banks to engage in risky bets and then expect to be bailed out by taxpayers. That happened to us. It got us into big trouble.”