Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I come to the floor to support an amendment I filed with Senators Merkley, Baldwin, and Blumenthal. The amendment is simple. It says Congress shouldn't make it easy to pass any trade deal that weakens our financial rules. In 2008, we suffered through the worst financial crisis in generations. Millions of families lost their homes. Millions of people lost their jobs. Millions lost their retirement savings. And they watched as the government spent hundreds of billions of their tax dollars to bail out the giant banks. In response, Congress passed some commonsense financial reforms--the Dodd-Frank act. These new rules cracked down on the cheating and lying in the financial marketplace. They required the big banks to raise more capital so they wouldn't need a bailout if they started to stumble. They gave our regulators new tools to oversee the biggest banks to make sure the rules were followed. It is no surprise the giant banks don't like the new rules, so for 5 years now they have been on the attack. They have sent their armies of lobbyists and lawyers and their Republican friends in Congress to try to roll back the rules and let the giants of Wall Street run free again. Democrats stood strong to fight off these attacks because we knew that thoughtful rules can help stop the next financial crisis and protect our working families from another great recession.…”