Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this bill. When my colleagues speak about the burdensome cost of regulations, I would like to remind them of the high cost of deregulation and inadequately funded regulators that we witnessed in 2008. This bill would increase the operating costs of the SEC without any increase in the agency's budget. Just yesterday, the chairman of the SEC warned the Financial Services Committee that this bill would divert resources from enforcing investor protections. And last year, former- SEC Chairman Schapiro said that a nearly identical bill would ``significantly impede the SEC's ability to administer the securities laws.'' I would remind my colleagues that the failure to administer the security laws and regulate our financial system has cost us $16 trillion. That's the amount that families in America lost during the financial crisis. That is more than $50,000 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. During the financial crisis, in the last 18 months of the Bush administration, the average American family lost a quarter of its net worth. Compare that to the onset of the Great Depression where families lost only about 12 percent of their net worth during a 5-year period. So by that measure, our last financial crisis was twice as big and twice as fast as the onset of the Great Depression.…”