Political Quotes

“And I thank the gentleman from Alabama for yielding to me the customary 30 minutes for debate. I rise to debate the rule for consideration of H.R. 5143, the Transparent Insurance Standards Act of 2016. At best, this bill is unnecessary. At worst, it will harm our ability to reach vital international agreements to protect our financial system. Mr. Speaker, the 2008 financial crisis and the subsequent Great Recession was the worst financial disaster in our Nation's history since the Great Depression. Nearly 9 million Americans lost their jobs, doubling the unemployment rate. More than 11 million Americans lost their homes to foreclosures. Home values dropped more than 30 percent. Our Nation lost more than $13 trillion in economic output. To put that in perspective, that is the equivalent of losing a year's gross domestic product. From this disaster, we learned many lessons and passed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to ensure that we are better able to prevent such a financial calamity from occurring again. One lesson we learned was the significant risk posed to our financial system by potentially unstable, large, globally active insurance companies, as demonstrated by the near collapse of AIG.…”