Political Quotes

“OK. Well, these front rooms back here. Let me just say, if I could: Look, the fact is, we had a bipartisan agreement that has been throttled back. There is a chance--I understand. That is what I am saying. I hope the cosponsors of this amendment will at least support it on the floor. I do not think there has been anything enlightening that has occurred--just the fact that, look, the White House has expressed opposition to this. I understand that, and that is the way things are when the White House is the White House. But what I would say is, the Senator from Connecticut specifically tried to get support for this consumer protection agency by saying that institutions under $10 billion in assets would not be enforced upon directly by this consumer protection agency. But what has happened as a result of the bill is the fact that now, instead of that, we now have State AGs--they are going to enforce against these very institutions on rules that emanate from these Federal statutes. So I would say that is a far worse situation for these community banks and credit unions. I know they view that as far worse from that standpoint. Then, on top of that, we have added language that is vague, language such as ``abusive'', where the AG has the ability to come in after the fact and basically break contracts if, in their view, they decide that something may have been abusive. Again, that is a very vague term. So what I would say to you is that, yes, you are embarking on new territory.…”