Political Quotes

“Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to the irresponsible cuts this bill makes to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission budget and in support of the DeLauro amendment which allows us to debate this issue. These cuts to CFTC indicate that the majority believes that CFTC can carry out its duties with even less funding this year than they had last year, or that their duties aren't of great importance to the American people to begin with. For those of us who may have forgotten, the financial crisis was the result of some very bad bets, bets made by Wall Street firms in the unregulated $300 trillion derivatives market. The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the collapse of the mortgage market, and the bailout of AIG and other firms are all a result of these bad bets. The 14 million unemployed, the still weak job market, and the tremendous loss of hard- earned home equity and retirement savings are also a result of these bad bets. That is why we worked so hard this last Congress to pass the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. This act gives CFTC tremendous responsibility for making sure that the public never again has to bail out the Wall Street firms that rolled the dice with taxpayers ending up holding the bag. CFTC's new responsibilities are important, and so is the job that CFTC already does. The current role of the CFTC is to regulate the commodity futures and options markets in the United States.…”