Political Quotes

“The ranking member seems as if she would like to have a conversation about housing and prices. I am happy to do that--I am a former realtor and builder--just not right now. Today, we are here to talk about H.R. 4790, the Volcker Rule Regulatory Harmonization Act, introduced by my good friend and colleague, Mr. Hill. H.R. 4790 would streamline the regulatory authority over the Volcker rule by granting the Federal Reserve the exclusive primary authority, while requiring all of the other agencies to yet do their job as prescribed. This was really about proprietary trading. Because of the key role that market making plays in ensuring deep, liquid capital markets, the framers of the Volcker rule sought to exempt market-making activities from the coverage of its prohibition on proprietary trading. There is just one problem: The line between impermissible ``proprietary trading'' and permissible ``market making'' is virtually impossible to draw. To add insult to injury, the framers of the Volcker rule unartfully conferred responsibility for both implementing and enforcing the rule on five different Federal financial regulators, all of which have different mandates and regulatory philosophies: the Federal Reserve, FDIC, OCC, SEC, and the CFTC. It is an alphabet soup of regulators.…”