Political Quotes

“Mr. President, it has been a good year to be a Wall Street banker. Barely a day goes by that doesn't bring news of another consumer protection rollback, another unraveling of taxpayer protections, or another handout to Wall Street. The man at the center of many of these decisions is right now, on this floor, up for nomination to a 14-year term as Governor on the Board of the Federal Reserve. When Randy Quarles' nomination to serve as Vice Chair of Supervision at the Fed--the first person ever to serve in that position--when it came before the Senate last year, I urged my colleagues to vote no. Quarles' record worried many of us that he wasn't interested in doing actual supervision. I said he seemed far too ready to swallow financial industry talking points, once again, and relax the rules for Wall Street. Since then, his record at the Federal Reserve his confirmed the worst fears so many of us held. In just 10 months under Mr. Quarles' leadership, the Fed has taken steps to systematically unravel Wall Street reform. Let's look at what happened. Start with the stress test. The Fed allowed the seven largest banks to redirect $96 billion that should have been used to pay workers, to reduce fees for consumers, and to protect taxpayers from bailouts. Instead, they plowed that money into share buybacks and dividends that do what? Of course, they reward wealthy executives and the biggest investors. Two banks, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, had capital below the required amounts.…”