Chris Dodd

The decision regarding how to move forward in Afghanistan represents an incredibly difficult moment--for the President, for this panel, and for our Nation.

I urge my colleagues to support the National Liberty Memorial Act.

I urge my colleagues to support quick passage of the Civil War Sesquicentennial Commission Act of 2009.

If there is any silver lining in what we have been through...it is because we are in this moment.

I strongly support your confirmation. And as I said at the outset, I believe you are the right person at the right time to do this job.

I think that is a bad idea and we don't include that.

I will go to my grave believing that what you did--what we did--over that 2-week period...will go down as the right thing to have done.

We are not talking about death panels here now in living wills.

I appreciate your indulgence, Chairman Bernanke, here in breaking this up a little bit.

I say respectfully, if we looked over in the G20, more than half of our colleagues in the G20 separate supervisory and monetary policy.

With the benefit of hindsight, what would you have done differently?

Should there be accountability? Absolutely. Do we need to maintain a sense of urgency to change those things that led to those mistakes? You bet.

I will support you, not because I think you did not make mistakes--as you have admitted here today, you did--not because I do not think we should hold everyone accountable for doing better--I think we should--but because I think you are in…

We wrote a check for $180 billion to AIG. If we had not done that, they would have been in trouble.

I got to tell you, Mr. Chairman, I mean, going through that period at that time when all the headlines were about the $168 million in bonuses that went out to AIG and virtually no reporting whatsoever on the counterparty issue, and the…

I want to just say--and then I am going to quickly turn to others, let me say I disagree with my friend and colleague from Kentucky about the conclusion of what ought to happen to your nomination.

Well, thank you, but this is an issue we want to stay in close contact with you and others on this matter to see if this thing emerges as a growing problem as this economist and others are warning us.

It is not our intention to take it out, at all, but rather expand the number of eyes that are looking at these situations.

I do believe it is a very, very serious matter to take the Fed essentially out of financial stability management.

We also urge the Senate to enact Senator Dodd's legislation to create the Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

We also commend Chairman Dodd for the financial reform discussion draft he released last week.

Abusive overdraft policies are blatantly unfair. And the banks know it.

That's why I introduced--The Fairness and Accountability in Receiving Overdraft Coverage Act.

Last week, the Federal Reserve announced that they will require banks to get a customer's consent before enrolling them in an overdraft coverage program.

But banks often add overdraft coverage to consumer accounts without informing them or giving them a choice.