Political Quotes

“I spoke recently of the urgent need for certain amendments to the Securities Investor Protection Act, SIPA, in order to protect victims of Ponzi schemes. Under no circumstances, except complicity with a crooked broker, should these investors be subject to clawback litigation. If necessary, I am prepared to propose such legislation. Instead of representing the best interests of the victims, the Madoff trustee is representing SIPC against the victims. Let's do the right thing for the average American who works hard, saves money, invests in the stock market with the hope of ultimately retiring on his savings. I now want to address the need to provide such victims with tax relief. Tens of thousands of Americans have lost their life savings because of the incompetence of the SEC and its failure to close down the operations of Bernard Madoff, Allen Stanford, and so many others. Congress cannot ignore the fact that the biggest beneficiary of Madoff's and Stanford's crimes is the Federal Government. Every year, even if investors did not take money out of Madoff or Stanford, they paid taxes on the supposed income from those investments. With respect to Madoff, the reported income was short-term capital gains, which is subject to the highest income tax rate under the Internal Revenue Code. Congressman Bill Pascrell has proposed legislation, H.R. 5058, providing some tax relief to the victims of these Ponzi schemes.”