Chuck Schumer

If we miss the moment, we will find ourselves in a deeper hole for a good many years to come.

Regulation must strike a delicate balance--providing a sense of safety and security for investors, without snuffing out the flame of entrepreneurial vigor and financial innovation that drives economic growth.

All you need is one significant outlier to throw off the--to toss up the apple cart.

I think we all have an interest in maintaining the independence of the standard setters.

I have always thought all holding companies should be regulated by one regulator, maybe the Fed, maybe not.

I think the leaders in Europe and the United States, Canada, Latin America, they are all interested in this subject.

I have been on Banking Committees for 28 years and I think you have been testifying before them for about 28 years.

I am confident that the changing of the guard, particularly the appointment of Mary Schapiro as the new SEC Chairman, will be a good start toward reforming the SEC.

We need to have a real auditor that has some accountability.

Today's SEC appears stagnant and behind the times, almost always closing the barn door too late.

The Bernie Madoff fraud was a punch to the gut of our financial system which was already reeling from too many haymakers.

I think we are a far cry from the SEC that was established by Joseph Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s.

This kind of exemptive rule is, in my view, deregulation carried to excess.

I want to thank the witnesses and thank the Chairman. I look forward to the testimony.

You cannot be your own watchdog.

The industry is coming to agree with me.

That is why Senator Shelby and I, among others, are introducing the Safe Markets Act today, which, among other things, would authorize the hiring of 100 new SEC enforcement staff as well as FBI agents and prosecutors to go after criminal…

I think our leadership on this is critical to our bona fides with respect to Iran, North Korea, and the rest of the world.

I endorse him, without qualification, unequivocally, and with a great deal of pride that someone of his talent has been nominated.

It would be a blatant violation if someone did the same--a Democrat did the same thing on the liberal side.

It will mean an end to waterboarding and other shameful forms of torture, and because it will mean a full return to the rule of law.

It is hard to be a straight shooter when you are a blind loyalist.

Will you be the people's lawyer or the President's lawyer?

Just one more on the Civil Rights Division--again, a crown jewel of this Justice Department.

I think we have to look at the entire record.