Melvin Watt: “I think that is an honorable objective. The problem is that this debate has wandered off into a discussion about whether…”

“I think that is an honorable objective. The problem is that this debate has wandered off into a discussion about whether the SEC effectively did what it was supposed to do with respect to Bernie Madoff. And when I hear my colleague, Mr. Miller, say, well, this is about holding the SEC accountable for what they did not do, I don't know how you hold the SEC accountable for what they did not do by decreasing their ability to regulate an industry and by decreasing their budget. Those two things don't compute with me. I just am having a big problem internalizing this. You have an agency here that has a $1 billion annual budget. It has responsibility for policing and monitoring all of the things that Mr. Green talked about in his debate. But on a gross level, 8.5 billion shares of stock are transferred every day, so $1 billion a year.…”