On the recordMay 5, 2010
I don't know if there has ever been a perfect law. Maybe the law that was written on stone tablets and brought down the mountain by Senator Moses was a perfect law. Ever since then, human beings have tried to write laws that are good and acknowledge that they are human. Maybe the laws will have to be revisited and changed and revised. That humility comes with this job, because you understand this is an imperfect process. We debate, try to reach compromises and make concessions. Virtually every time at the end, you say: That isn't what I would have written, but that is what the Senate decided to move forward with. Now we are in the midst of debating this law, 1,407 pages long, called the Financial Stability Act. Why are we doing a bill that looks like a telephone directory? We are doing it because of the recession, a recession which, frankly, hit America harder than anything since the Great Depression. Seventeen trillion dollars was taken out of the American economy.
