Barney Frank

Those days of lack of regulation, of somehow the government is always the problem, always in the way, are over.

I don't think anybody in America today thinks there is too much regulation in the financial services industry except some of my friends on the other side of the aisle.

Chairman Frank and several members of this committee have been leaders in talking about the importance of a comprehensive approach to systemic risk regulation.

The lack of regulation is unequivocally, clearly, undebatably the reason that we have the economic crisis we have today.

I think we should be suing to get those bonuses back, not as the government that gave money to this private entity, but as the owner, saying, you know what, you got bonuses that you didn't deserve and we want them back on the merits.

The federal government says, wait a minute. We, in effect, own this company. And we're not going to pay bonuses to people who lost money for the company that we had to take over.

Federal government says, wait a minute. We, in effect, own this company. And we're not going to pay bonuses to people who lost money for the company that we had to take over.

The urging of Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA).

We have an unhappiness on the part of a lot of citizens who are suffering deeply from the consequences of mistakes which most of them didn't make.

There are more and less responsible ways to deal with that, but it is a good fact of our system.

I have to say, when people tell me they don't want something to be done with political considerations, my response is that they should not ask 535 politicians to do it.

I urge you and I will urge everybody who is in this business to withhold foreclosure until we get Mr. Geithner's program.

Covering all forms of financial activity

They should be banned; and I believe if this Committee doesn't do it, it will be done by the SEC.

We have got to give these servicers the right to renegotiate where it is in the interest to do so.

Yes. It is to say that the gentleman has a very good idea. I regret that what I believe to be obstruction kept us from incorporating it, but I will be strongly urging the administration to work with us to see that this is made a part of…

What do we tell the person making mortgage payments why we are trying to help reduce foreclosures? And the major reason is that it is the improvident granting of these loans and the failure of many of these loans to pay off that is the…

Yes. In fact, it will make the administration better if those administering it have knowledge of and represent the whole range of people to whom this is aimed. And I thank the gentlewoman.

She's absolutely right. I appreciate her calling this to our attention. We have amended the bill to take into account these private banks, many of which serve lower-income communities and are themselves people of experience in this area…

The gentleman has transformed my correcting his error into distancing myself from President Obama. I said when I got up that it was done by President Bush at the request of President Obama.

He says that Ronald Reagan didn't like the spending of the Congress during his administration. Of course, for 6 of those 8 years he had a Republican Senate, but the point is, if he didn't like it, he exercised great self-restraint because…

I just want to congratulate him and his fellow Kansans and others who brought this to our attention. And let's make one thing clear; we recently read--I did--in the New York Times about smaller communities that have lost commercial air…

I would note that the homebuilders and the realtors strongly support the bill we are talking about today because they think it helps in other ways.

I do not think in American history there has been as thorough a repudiation of a President by members of his own party, as we have heard from the Republican Party today and elsewhere. But they are entitled to repudiate their President. I…

And the purpose of this bill is not simply to confirm that the authority is there, but to say that we expect it to be used, and to demand that if it is not used we get a written explanation as to why not. And I think it should be…