Political Quotes

“I was moved to come to the floor to argue in opposition to this amendment and in opposition to the underlying legislation. I was moved because the amendment offered by the gentleman from Oklahoma and the amendment offered by the gentleman from Virginia are both about reports and analyses that this new agency will be required to produce. And it's odd, because to give my friends on the other side credit, they usually stand for more streamlined and efficient government, sometimes to the point that government ceases to function; but they are about efficiency and streamlining, and yet here we're hearing about more reports and more analyses, for the simple reason that this is part of a larger strategy to weigh down, to underfund, and to decapitate an agency they have no interest in seeing survive, an agency that would protect consumers, that would protect that group that was badly and most severely harmed in the disaster that we just went through. Why? One can speculate. Perhaps it's to stand for the industry, for the financial concerns. But why do that? Why do that when it has been proven time and time again, not just in the last 3 years but over hundreds of years, that financial services is a very volatile and very risky pursuit that if not adequately regulated will do what it has done in the last 3 years, will do what it did in the late 1920s, what it has done hundreds of years prior, collapse in upon itself.…”