On the recordJune 14, 2011
I rise to support the fair and necessary funding for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. The CFTC acts as a Wall Street watchdog, overseeing American markets that directly impact our Nation's workers, businesses, and families. Refusing to responsibly fund this Commission puts our constituents in danger of higher gas prices, higher food prices, and a greater likelihood that Wall Street will once again take advantage of them. While the derivatives market has grown by 400 percent over the last 10 years, the U.S. Government has failed to match that growth in regulators. Now the majority wants to take even more cops off Wall Street, and as someone has said, it's like putting the Little League champions up against the New York Yankees. With speculators making up 70 percent of market players and an industry that invests $25 billion in technology each year, the Commission that regulates behavior on Wall Street cannot afford to be left behind. Our taxpayers cannot afford to pick up the bill again. To monitor and regulate this market, and to protect American taxpayers, last Congress we passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act. And I might add that that was not a knee-jerk operation. We took months and months, many, many hearings, as you well know, working across the aisle together to try to do something that would prevent a re-happening of what we were going through and still have the aftereffect of.…
