Political Quotes

“Mr. President, when I came here in 2009, we were in the middle of an enormous meltdown due to high-risk trading inside our major banks. I wondered whether we as an institution were capable of undertaking this challenge of changing the circumstances around that in order to not have another 2007, 2008 meltdown that would do so much damage to families across this country. So I put out an email to everyone that said, Is anyone interested in taking on this issue for the future stability of our financial system? The next day I came to the floor and Senator Levin said, the email you sent out, I want to talk to you about that. I want to partner in taking this on. Immediately, he basically said: ``We will work together. I am not the senior Senator who wants to take over this effort,'' although I would have been glad for that to happen. There was not the ego in it; there was the intellect and the passion and the determination to fix a problem. To me, the Senate should be about people coming together to fix problems to make this Nation work better. That event is deeply burned into my mind. The result, because of Senator Levin's efforts, was the Volcker rule that said high-risk trading should not be done on the banks' books, proprietary trading and high-risk instruments. It will make a significant difference in the years to come.…”