Political Quotes

“With all due to respect to my colleague, I rise in opposition to this amendment. Mr. Chairman, when the bill was being written, I recall going to the sponsors of this bill both here and the Senate and saying make sure that this agency is under appropriation supervision, under supervision of the House of Representatives. And I still believe that part of the fiscal crisis which we are still living under was the lack of supervision over the SEC and over the actions of Wall Street. So I am strongly in support of having them answer to us and at least have input from the people's House--from the people's Representatives--to ask them to come before us and tell us what they are doing. It sounds great for many Members to have an agency be on its own and do the right thing. But past history shows us that when we did that, when we did not supervise, and when we did not have oversight, it did just the opposite. I am from New York, Mr. Chairman, and I tell you that Wall Street went berserk because we did not pay attention, we did not do oversight, and we did not hold them accountable. So I would hope that we defeat this amendment with all due respect to my colleague.”