Political Quotes

“And the school districts, Congressman Ellison. When you look at the revenues that are bleeding away from school districts, the harm these big banks did--and they used to be speculation houses--and then they changed their name to banks. They got to be holding banks then. But if you look at the harm that they caused across America, it's still not over; and they're not being held accountable. Actually, they got richer. As a result of this crisis, six banks now control two- thirds of the finances of this country. Before the crisis, they controlled about 40 percent. So they just got bigger and more powerful while community after community has been struck with more homelessness, with declining revenues to school systems, declining revenues into coffers so they can't hire police. The drug trade has just locked down in some of these communities as people struggle to earn their way forward in the most unfortunate way. You look at the harm this has caused around the country, it's profound. I gave a Special Order the other day, and I said I think what we ought to do with these big bankers, places like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, they ought to come to our homeless shelters and scrub the floors. Once we get them prosecuted, and I wait for that day, wouldn't it be great if the CEO of Goldman Sachs had to come to a homeless shelter in Minneapolis and scrub the floors and join Habitat for Humanity for a couple of years and go try to fix up some of these houses in these communities?…”