Political Quotes

“Mr. President, I rise today to speak on behalf of an amendment I filed to direct regulators to impose tough risk- and size- based capital standards on financial institutions as they grow in size or engage in risky business practices. I am pleased to offer this amendment on behalf of Senator Shaheen and myself. Our amendment is aimed at addressing the too-big-to-fail problem at the root of the current crisis by requiring financial firms to have adequate amounts of cash and other liquid assets to survive financial crises without turning to the taxpayers for a bailout. It is critical to our ability to avoid future crises that this amendment be adopted. I am very pleased that the FDIC Chairman, Sheila Bair, has strongly endorsed our amendment. In a recent letter to me, Chairman Bair called this proposal: . . . a critical element to ensure that U.S. financial institutions hold sufficient capital to absorb losses during future periods of financial stress. With new resolution authority, taxpayers will no longer bail out large financial institutions. This makes it imperative that they have sufficient capital to stand on their own in times of adversity. Chairman Bair also noted the importance of ensuring that bank holding companies and large nonbanks are held to the same capital and risk standards that are applied to insured banks in order to protect against excessive leverage that could destabilize our financial system.…”