The $50 billion provision in this bill was proposed by the Republicans. I did not come up with this idea. This was the idea that was brought up by the community bankers and Republicans who said that if there is an unwinding of a failed…

I was prepared to stay there all week, as my colleagues know, and announced in advance that would be the case. So for the purposes of understanding here, again, that was their decision. I hope we could get to some agreement farther down…

That was the intention. But there were 401 amendments filed by 2 p.m. on Friday, before the announced markup of the bill. Over the weekend, staff came to work on amendments. I say respectfully, no one from the minority side came in on the…

I come to the floor now, and I came to the floor yesterday, in response to the campaign by those both outside and, apparently, inside this Chamber who are literally trying to kill the Wall Street reform legislation, and to tie that reform…

Let me say, again, I came here--if I have been strong it is because I am responding to the minority leader. The minority leader has come every morning now saying this bill perpetuates bailouts. I am not going to sit here idly and allow…

Well, thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.

The GSE question, Mr. Secretary, as you well know, is simply too important to be treated as an afterthought.

Well, I thank you for that response, and I want to commend you again for the efforts being made.

Let me just editorially say on this, we do actually address the issue, now not to the satisfaction of my friend from Tennessee, but by requiring skin in the game early on, they then have a vested interest in seeing underwriting standards.

I rise this morning to try and set the record straight, if I can, on some of the rhetoric I have heard over the last 24 hours or so regarding the financial reform efforts I have been engaged in along with my colleagues on the Senate…

There is a lot of ground to cover. But obviously, the issue of foreclosure prevention is still an issue.

Actually we got everyone together and unfortunately Secretary Duncan could not make it, so we had him call in.

I think for a smart guy like you who is in charge of housing--you know, you are the Housing Czar, as they say--for a smart guy like you to tell us what you think ought to happen there is pretty important.

I look forward to working with you on your legislation relating to the Department's new Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities and a broad range of related issues.

I think politically unrealistically that we are going to provide the kind of resources for maintenance in these areas.

Mr. President, it's straight from the Wall Street special interest talking points. That's what they're determined to do, defeat this bill by suggesting somehow that there's a bailout provision in this bill. Nothing could be further from…

But to castigate it and label it is nothing more than a partisan debate and suggests that, somehow, what we have done here is perpetuate too big to fail, is just poppycock.

I think people are under this illusion that there is a nice little St. Aloysius around the corner where everyone is going to go to school because PS150 closed down.

Too often that is what it comes across as.

I have often said to people in a private conversation, would you send your own child to that school? No.

I wish to take a couple of minutes to talk briefly about my responsibilities as chairman of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee on which I serve with 22 others of our colleagues. Almost a quarter of this institution…

I want to make particular reference to the members of my staff, beginning with Jeremy Sharp and Tamar Magarik Haro who did a wonderful job. Jeremy Sharp's father is former Congressman Phil Sharp. He was part of the class with Max Baucus…

I wish to spend a couple of minutes to express my gratitude to a lot of people. I begin by thanking my colleagues here, both Democrats and Republicans. Obviously, all of us would have liked to have had a health care bill that was more than…

I rise to discuss the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act. Although none of us are ignorant of the historic nature of the health care portion of our work this past week, I wish to take a few moments to talk about the significance…

I want to take a couple of minutes, because next week we will be having a markup in the Senate Banking Committee of the financial regulatory reform effort that we have been involved in now for about 2 years. It was 2 years ago this past…