Political Quotes

“I thank the ranking member for yielding. Mr. Chairman, we are still feeling the effects of a crisis that largely came about because the referees who oversee the soundness of our financial system were not on the field. We took the referees off the field. As a result, millions of Americans are still out of work. But while Democrats have worked to restore proper oversight to Wall Street, Republicans want the referees off the field again, and that would put us all at risk. This legislation puts the special interests ahead of the public interests by weakening the very entity that shields responsible consumers from financial abuses. Last year, Congress passed an important Wall Street reform bill in order to prevent a job-destroying financial crisis from happening again. And one of the most crucial parts of that bill was the creation of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a watchdog, a watchdog that would look out for the interests of ordinary Americans who want to sign mortgages, apply for student loans, and start businesses on honest and fair terms. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is empowered to ensure that lenders provide clear, plain-language explanations of loan terms and to help stop the kind of abusive and deceptive loan practices that helped drive our economy off a cliff. If such protections had been in place in the last decade, the odds of a crisis occurring would have been significantly less.…”