John Ensign: “the American people are tired. They are tired of the government spending money that it does not have while they are…”

“the American people are tired. They are tired of the government spending money that it does not have while they are forced to make tough decisions about their own family's budgets. But more importantly, the American people are tired of the government stepping in, blank check in hand, to bail out giant Wall Street firms that were irresponsible with their money. The American people are sick and tired of seeing their hard-earned taxpayer dollars squandered in the name of too big to fail. One of the most important lessons that we learned from this financial crisis, hopefully we learned, is that the bailouts were unfair. They allowed the government to manipulate the market by picking winners and losers, and they used taxpayer dollars to do so. Republicans have made this point repeatedly during this debate. Those on the other side of the aisle have accused us of trying to hold up reform. But what we have been trying to do is to listen to the American people when they demand no more bailouts. This bill does not address the concerns of the American people. Despite the enormous size of this bill, and its complexity--and believe me, it is truly complex--I do not believe anybody in this Chamber--as a matter of fact, I do not believe anybody on Capitol Hill fully understands this bill. This bill makes more explicit the ability of the government to continue to pick winners and losers when bailing out irresponsible Wall Street firms.”