Political Quotes

“10 years ago this month, we saw the first domino fall toward the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Some of our country's largest financial institutions were facing capital and liquidity crises, and it became clear that many of the biggest banks would need a massive injection of capital, in the form of a taxpayer bailout, to prevent what then-Chairman Bernanke called the ``chaotic unwinding'' of financial markets. The near collapse of the U.S. financial system had a real and lasting impact on the prosperity of the United States, reaching the pocketbooks and kitchen tables of every American family and the stability of the world's economy across all sectors. We--and I do mean we--you, me and all tax-paying U.S. citizens footed the bill for the risky and cavalier behavior of our country's biggest banks, allowed largely by a poorly regulated system that brought our economy to its knees. American taxpayer dollars propped up our financial system to prevent its catastrophic failure, an economic collapse that would have wrought even more damage and misery on tens of millions of American households. The crisis clearly exposed deep flaws in our regulatory system and a serious lack of oversight of the financial sector. It taught us that looking the other way and trusting the system to check and right itself will always result in a race to the bottom in terms of capitalization, risk-taking, transparency, and, too often, casual lending practices.…”