John Sarbanes: “I wanted to express my personal appreciation to the Senator for his very kind remarks. But even more, I wanted to…”

“I wanted to express my personal appreciation to the Senator for his very kind remarks. But even more, I wanted to underscore the constructive contributions which the Senator made to this legislation in the course of its consideration by the committee. I know how closely he followed what we were trying to do. He came forward with a number of ideas that were most helpful to us in shaping this legislation. If we don't move to restore confidence in the U.S. capital markets, there will be a negative impact on our economy. We are seeing some of that now. We have already seen this tremendous loss in the value of the retirement plans. People have just been wiped out. Tens of thousands of people are being laid off. The impact on the economy is beginning to spread. We need to move in order to counter that and start ascending in a different direction. I particularly want to thank the Senator for his consistent help in the committee as we marked up this legislation.”