Saxby Chambliss: “I rise today to bring to the Senate an issue of critical importance. Last night, the Senate was able to pass by…”

“I rise today to bring to the Senate an issue of critical importance. Last night, the Senate was able to pass by unanimous consent legislation that will provide much needed transparency to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation process of examining and resolving bank failures. Not only is this an issue that has severely impacted the wellbeing of my state of Georgia, but this Nation is suffering as a whole. There are some communities across the country that are no longer have a bank to serve them and will continue to suffer on their economic development efforts because the sole bank in their community has failed. Since 2008 there has been over 400 bank failures nationwide. Seventy of those failures have occurred in Georgia. This year alone 18 banks in Georgia have failed. While that represents over 27 percent of all the banks in my State, this is not just a Georgia issue. There are nine other States that have extraordinarily high rates of failures including: Florida, Illinois, California, Minnesota, Washington, Michigan, Nevada, Missouri, and Arizona. Unfortunately, there will continue to be bank failures in this country and this bill will provide the Congress with information about the underlying fundamentals that cause these failures.…”