Political Quotes

“Mr. Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge the U.S. Department of Justice for finally taking some substantive action against one of the credit rating agencies, Standard & Poor's, for its role in causing the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. When Wall Street's housing bubble burst in 2008, it sent shock waves through our economy. That shock wave may not have been so destructive if credit rating agencies like Standard & Poor's did not create fraud. Rather than assessing real risk and due diligence on the securities, Standard & Poor's invented a system of defrauding investors by providing the highest rating as long as the clients paid Standard & Poor's enough money. If Standard & Poor's actually rated the mortgage securities for what they were truly worth, our entire banking system and economy may not have collapsed. While the Department of Justice should be praised for taking some action against Standard & Poor's, other rating agencies were left out of the case. And the fact is Justice's case is only a civil one, not a criminal one. That tells you who really holds political power in our country. Thanks to Wall Street, America lost over 8 million jobs. American households lost over $19 trillion in wealth. Yet no major Wall Street executive has ever faced the threat of jail time. Real cases could yield real dollars back to our Treasury and help America pay the bills that resulted from the Great Recession beginning in 2008. ____________________”