Peter Roskam: “I rise, Mr. Chairman, in opposition to H.R. 1257. But first of all, I want to compliment the chairman and the ranking…”

“I rise, Mr. Chairman, in opposition to H.R. 1257. But first of all, I want to compliment the chairman and the ranking member who ran a very good process, had fruitful hearings, but nevertheless I think came up with a faulty product. We all tend to sometimes argue in the alternative, picking and choosing those things that we want to focus on, and I find it ironic that the chairman has, in one way, this very, very high view of the marketplace and, in another way, demonstrates a fairly low view of the marketplace. This is all about the level, Mr. Chairman, at which we choose to intervene. We saw the marketplace respond positively just a couple of weeks ago. Morgan Stanley, at their annual meeting, those shareholders decided not to take up this question of executive compensation. The same thing happened, Mr. Chairman, at the Bank of New York recently. So what is the question before the House today? The question before the House is, when there is a difficult situation that comes forward, admittedly a difficult situation that the chairman recently called a fact of nature, and that is overly compensated executive employees, what does the House do? Does the House rush in? I would suggest that the bill as presented currently is an overreaction.”