On the recordApril 26, 2010
I wish to talk about the vote we had just a few minutes ago, a vote that was a victory for Wall Street but not a victory for the American taxpayer. We hear our Republican colleagues proclaim they are for Wall Street reform, that they are on the reform bandwagon, but then they seem to pull the emergency brake. They say they are on the reform bandwagon, and yet when they have a chance to move forward and simply to debate the process, they pull the emergency brake. The approach our colleagues on the other side of the aisle have taken on Wall Street reform symbolizes America's worst fears about how the powerful operate. They held a closed-door strategy session with Wall Street executives that, from published reports, included solicitations for their campaign committee. Then they marched into this Chamber with a script, a Wall Street playbook written by the Nation's most significant Republican political consultant. Rather than debating what was in the bill, they went to the Wall Street playbook. They waved the flag. They proclaimed their patriotic intention to protect Americans from those who took us to the brink of economic disaster. But then they played the fear card and they talked about bailouts and told Americans they would pay. Americans realize our Wall Street reform is actually what, in essence, has to be done to end taxpayer bailouts, that opponents are just playing fast and loose with the facts to protect the big banks instead of taxpayers.
