Barney Frank: “Let me make the substantive argument here. Law enforcement in America is not totalitarian. It is not authoritarian. It…”

“Let me make the substantive argument here. Law enforcement in America is not totalitarian. It is not authoritarian. It requires a buy-in by those regulators. And that's why this amendment would do so much damage. There is, of course, a disconnect between the amendment which hides behind small business and the broader attack on Sarbanes-Oxley that we have heard from the two speakers. But here's where the connection comes in. The SEC, with the full backing of Secretary Paulson, all these Republican nominees, Secretary Paulson from Goldman Sachs, Chris Cox and the others, they understand that Sarbanes-Oxley was overwritten in the regulatory phase. They are writing it down, but they don't want people to just think this is chaos. They have asked us explicitly, the Secretary of the Treasury and the SEC, the Republican appointees, to let them work this out. They agree that it needs to be reduced. But if you start now with Congress piecemeal amending it, the degree of consensus they are trying to reach in the business community will erode.”