Political Quotes

“I appreciate the comments of my friend from Texas, but we couldn't disagree more about the value of this bill and the process we have gone through to get to this point. I would first like to thank the chairman and also the ranking member of the Financial Services Committee for holding hearing after hearing, taking testimony for the last year-and-a-half, almost 2 years, on the various subjects that are addressed within the bill, and for holding a very open and transparent conference that highlighted much of the bill and the differences between the House and the Senate. I think that kind of transparency is what we need to see in the financial markets, and that is at the heart of all of this. In September of 2008, we had a terrible financial free-fall, starting with placing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in conservatorship, and then a whole series of failures towards the end of that month. Ultimately the President of the United States, George Bush, he and his chief cabinet officers asked this Congress to support the banking system in a way that none of us could have ever conceived, but that was needed in an emergency to save the banking system and keep this economy going in some fashion or another. Even so, under the rules and the approach taken by the Republicans who were in office throughout the Bush administration and this Congress from 1994 on to 2006, Wall Street was unregulated.”