Chuck Schumer

What a quintessentially and great American story.

I just find this--let's put it like this. I think they're off to a bad start.

I regret that our colleagues are not participating here. It doesn't bode well for moving and filling vacancies on the bench.

I want to mention Lilo, who traveled here from Elmhurst, Queens, a neighborhood I very much love.

If banks are going to turn to taxpayers for their survival, then they had better expect to answer to the taxpayers.

And to suggest that we largely sit back and do nothing is not a course.

Oversight of the stabilization funds is critical to the effective and efficient use of the taxpayers' dollar.

Government, however is charged with improving the lives and welfare of the people.

Ohio families deserve to know where every one of their tax dollars is spent, and that it is spent wisely.

We must ensure that every available dollar goes to shoring up our banking system so we can get our economy moving again.

We must see a sharp change in the direction of this program under new management.

There appear to be significant gaps in Treasury's monitoring of the use of taxpayer money.

The TARP program remains a critical tool our Government will need to address the economic crisis.

The public is outraged by this behavior, with good cause.

Even former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, once an ardent defender of deregulation and the free market, recently acknowledged that there was a 'flaw' in his belief that markets could and would regulate themselves.

Eight years of the Bush Administration's one-sided, laissez-faire, deregulatory ideology have helped cripple our financial system.

Well, to clarify, my view would be to go back to the investor-paid initially.

Exactly. Yes, and it worked.

How in this international financial world, with a national system of regulation, don't you always flee--doesn't money always flee to the lowest common denominator?

Don't you think the Fed is pretty well removed from political pressures?

I agree, it is a unique opportunity.

If we have got good regulation, and good is not synonymous with a lot of regulation necessarily, but if we have intelligent regulation and the rest of the world doesn't follow us, well, that is too bad, because I think in the end, it will…

I think there is a willingness and an understanding that we have to move.

However, new factors, including technology, globalization, and industry consolidation and evolution have left our regulatory infrastructure too far behind the reality of today's global financial system.

I am not so worried--I mean, although the details, look how long it took to get some agreement on Basel and the capital accords.