Political Quotes

“Mr. President, every year about this time--actually every few months, or maybe every month--there are attempts by Wall Street to again change the rules, cut back consumer protection laws, and change the regulations that protect the American public against Wall Street greed. It happens almost weekly, it seems, in the Financial Services Committee in the House of Representatives. There are attempts in the Agriculture Committee, beaten back by Senator Stabenow, to her credit, and attempts in the banking committee, beaten back by Chairman Johnson, to his credit. Almost every week, it seems, there are efforts by Wall Street to undermine the protections that we were able to build in under the Dodd- Frank bill to stop Wall Street from doing to the economy what it did in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008. September of 2008 had been preceded by a decade of deregulation of the financial industry, decades of lobbying by very effective lobbyists for the six biggest Wall Street banks. Risky behavior was rewarded with gargantuan profits for the firms and multimillion-dollar bonuses for the executives. The CEO of one of the largest megabanks in the history of the world-- not just in our country--said: As long as the music is playing, you have got to get up and dance. There is a lot of money to be made on Wall Street, and they have to take advantage of every loophole, particularly those loopholes that their lobbyists create.…”