I am absolutely in favor of holding them accountable, and just to add a small fact to this, the corporate executives of the top 14 U.S. financial companies made $2.5 billion in compensation between 2000 and 2007.

the taxpayers should not be put in the position of having to choose between either watching the economy implode or having to bail out these big financial institutions

No financial institution should be too big to fail, and to me, that means three things.

In 2008, did we have a law that said that the Federal Government would bail out the biggest financial institutions if they threatened to bring down the entire economy?

The shutdown should not create moral hazard by letting the bank's executives escape accountability.

The shutdown should not require a dime of taxpayer money.

What happens to those jobs if we lift this ban?

So gas prices is the second question I want to ask about.

Does it make sense for us to lift the ban without some contingency plan in place if prices should jump?

The ban on selling crude oil has been in place for more than four decades, so it is a big deal.

Big oil may not like that, but the Massachusetts voters did not send me here to work for them.

if it goes badly, it is the American people who will end up paying.