Mr. President, I rise to address the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill and to share the reasons it makes a great deal of sense to restore the lane markers and traffic signals to our financial system--lane markers and traffic signals that were ripped away carelessly, thoughtlessly over the course of a decade and led to the economic house of cards that melted down last year, doing enormous damage to America's working families. There may be many in the financial world who feel pretty good about the most recent billion- dollar quarterly profits or million-dollar bonuses, but families in America's working world are not feeling so good. They are looking at their retirement savings being decimated. They look at the value of their house and realize it is worth less than it was 6 years ago. For many families, the amount they owe on the house is more than it is now worth. Families are looking at lost jobs and lost health care that went with those jobs. They are looking at an economy that struggling to recover, that is providing them few opportunities to get back on their feet. The meltdown triggered by the economic house of cards built up over the last decade is enormous. It is not only the damage done to families, it is the damage done to the economy as a whole.…
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