Barney Frank: “I thank the gentleman. First of all, she wants to punish the American public and the American economy because some…”

“I thank the gentleman. First of all, she wants to punish the American public and the American economy because some people were not up to it in the past. As to Madoff, we have a new set of commissioners. It broke in the end of 2008. We have a new Director of Enforcement. Yes, I want the SEC to get better, but the notion that they can take on complex new responsibilities regarding derivatives and hedge funds with less money this year than they had last year is laughable. For the gentlewoman's sake, she's for regulation, but she voted against the bill. It was her right to do that. And if we're going to relitigate that bill, let's do it. By the way, many in the financial industry do not want to see these cuts because, while some of them didn't want to see the rules, for them the worst situation is to have the rules and no capacity to have them promulgated and enforced. Yes, the SEC has made mistakes. By the way, if the standard was that if you'd wasted money in the past you would lose the budget, we would be saving hundreds of billions in the Pentagon budget. That logic never appears to apply to the Defense Department.”