Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank Mr. Ellison and our ranking member, Congresswoman Waters, for their great leadership on behalf of American consumers, American investors, and American taxpayers. I rise in opposition to the amendment and to the bill. Mr. Chair, today House Republicans are pushing a dangerous Wall Street first bill that would drag us right back to the days of the Great Recession. Eight years ago, unchecked recklessness on Wall Street ignited a financial meltdown that devastated families in every State in the Union: hundreds of thousands of people lost their jobs every month, and the unemployment rate soared to 10 percent; more than 11 million Americans lost their homes through foreclosure; $13 trillion in wealth, including families' hard-earned retirement savings and college savings, was destroyed. On the night of Thursday, September 18, 2008, the Treasury Secretary came to the Capitol for an emergency meeting with congressional leaders, Democrats and Republicans from the House and the Senate, to inform us of the financial meltdown. Secretary Paulson described the financial meltdown, which was horrific. When I asked the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Mr. Bernanke, what he thought of what he was telling us, Chairman Bernanke told us that, if we did not act immediately, we would not have an economy by Monday. We would not have an economy by Monday. Tens of millions of middle class families across America still bear the scars.…”