Mark Warner

I think we have all got a lot more questions for you, but we understand a vote will be held around 5.

The fact that we are talking about something in the virtual world really has, again, remarkable ramifications.

If we lay too much a regulatory burden, we could simply chase these exchanges offshore and still leave Americans unprotected.

I think now is the time to be talking about this subject.

My hope for this hearing is to educate the Senate Members and others and start the education of the public about virtual currencies.

We have got to sort through this right.

I would just add my voice to Senator Tester's that we would like to see that transparency as we start to evaluate nonbank institutions for SIFI designation so we kind of all know the rules going forward.

I have been personally disappointed in the FSOC's ability to kind of be that interagency arbiter around regulatory conflicts.

Government shutdowns, which cost, the latest estimate, $24 billion or potential default threats, which result in spikes of interest rates, sure as heck do not provide that predictability.

I would just say that I would ask you to look at this as well because it is one of the ways, without necessarily growing your balance sheet, that some of my colleagues have expressed a concern with.

Part of our political dysfunction in this town in terms of the ability to actually grapple with getting our country's balance sheet right...

I want to start where Senator Johanns left off and thank him and the cosponsors of 1217 because you are right.

Let us face it, they were damned if they do, damned if they do not.

S.1217, the Housing Finance Reform and Taxpayer Protection Act introduced by Senators Corker and Warner, represents an important bipartisan step in the debate on housing.

The idea of saying, first of all, do no harm, so whether it is low-income housing credits, whether it is Section 8, whether it is all the other pieces that make affordable housing.

But when we think back from a policy standpoint, who would have ever designed a system where we combined the function of private sector money making, a profit-making entity with this also quasi-role of an implicit Government.

We would also like to recognize the work of Senators Mark Warner and Bob Corker, and the Members of this Committee who have cosponsored their legislation.

I would love to see more comments on that.

Without those specific comments, language comments, we are not going to get there.

I guess what I would urge is that, working with Committee staff, you will agree, within a very, very short period of time, whatever Committee staff thinks is appropriate, that you actually get your specific comments, if we are going to…

I hope that will be days or weeks in terms of getting your comments in specific language, because, you know, we have been back and forth on lots and lots of these iterations for some time now.

But then if they do this, we would have to still figure out a way for your role so that if this basket of securities would not just be limited to a certain--one particular geographic region.

I appreciate particularly the final comments of Mr. Canter about the flexibility in S.1217.

We are encouraged by recent legislative activity that has revived this policy debate on the future of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

I do think Mr. Swagel's comments that if the 10 percent mark has been a bit overshot...