Political Quotes

“Mr. President, for years at big corporations such as Goldman Sachs, Wall Street bankers packaged bad mortgages and sold them to investors. They knew these investment vehicles would inevitably fail so they turned around and bet against them. They bet against the American people. That is what they did when they put these packages together. They sought to make a profit off the misfortunes of their own customers. Tonight we stand at the brink of a real debate on this topic, but our Republican colleagues will not even agree to let us move forward. We have to debate whether we are going to debate. Main Street suffered the most challenging economic situation in a generation. It has been made clear tonight who the Republicans stand with--they stand with Wall Street--because we are debating to debate. After the breathtaking scope of the economic crisis that America is only now coming to terms with, how can we simply refuse to move forward, refuse to debate this critical legislation? We are debating to debate--unbelievable. We have to debate to debate about fair, meaningful reform while Wall Street continues to pose a systemic threat to the American financial system. I know a little bit about the financial system. I am probably the only one here who is a banker. I spent my early years in the biggest bank of the State of Illinois, selling money for a living. I know about banking and I knew what Glass-Steagall would do at the time.…”