[Congressional Record Volume 156, Number 60 (Tuesday, April 27, 2010)]
[House]
[Page H2882]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


         IT'S TIME FOR MAIN STREET VALUES TO COME TO WASHINGTON

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Perriello) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PERRIELLO. Madam Speaker, the time for backroom deals is over. 
The time for the Washington-Wall Street collusion that has put Main 
Street at risk and risked the pension funds and hard-earned retirement 
accounts of so many Americans, it is time for this to end.
  How many loopholes is enough for the Republican Caucus in the Senate? 
We've had the entire Republican Senate Caucus join with the king of the 
Corn Husker Kickback to say, no, not enough loopholes, we need to water 
it down more, we need less accountability for Wall Street. That's not 
what the American people are saying. The American people are saying 
it's time to bring Main Street values of accountability, decency, and 
transparency to Washington and to Wall Street.
  People want the banks to bank and let those who want to use risky, 
speculative gambling schemes to keep their hands off of the hard-earned 
retirement of those who have worked their entire lives to be able to 
settle in their later years. People have worked hard to do this, and 
yet we now see from the e-mail streams and the memos from Wall Street 
that they were all too giddy to risk all that people had earned to make 
a few more bucks on these schemes.
  It's time to get back to an economic system built on building things 
and growing things that create jobs back on Main Street, living wage 
jobs that help people move from the working class up to the middle 
class at the core of the American dream. Yet standing in the way is a 
set of rules that seem to encourage the riskiest of behavior by the 
richest among us at the expense of those who are just trying to make 
it.
  People aren't asking for punitive damages--except where people broke 
the law, in which case we need more, not less, of the kind of 
investigations that we've seen from the SEC. People are just saying, 
Why shouldn't Wall Street and Washington have to play by the same rules 
that all of us do back on Main Street? Yet that basic principle seems 
to be too much to ask of those on the other side of this building who 
will stop at nothing, stop at no mechanism to ensure that they continue 
to protect the backroom deals and the carve-outs and the loopholes for 
Wall Street.
  We have a system that is based on the idea that if you work hard and 
play by the rules, you will be able to make it in this country. Well, 
people who worked hard and played by the rules had everything that they 
had saved for put at risk by tactics that never should have been 
allowed, but in the tight relationship between this town and Wall 
Street, we see too often that those basic principles, those Main Street 
values of decency, accountability, and fairness, are apparently too 
much to ask of too many in this town.
  But we have a chance this week, we have a chance in the weeks ahead 
to finally draw a line in the sand and say, no, we've had too much of 
that erosion of values, we've had too much of that culture of instant 
gratification--I want it for me right now, regardless of the 
consequences to my country or the economy. It's time for that to end.
  We have basic rules being offered that simply say decency, fairness, 
accountability say that you shouldn't be able to sell a product to 
people based on one thing and then bet against it so that you're taking 
their money through the back door, that the most powerful among us are 
able to exploit and take advantage of the everyday folks who have just 
worked hard and played by the rules to try to secure retirement.
  How many loopholes is enough for Republicans and the king of the Corn 
Husker Kickback at the other side of this building? How many loopholes 
do they need before they're ready to proceed with debate? It is far 
past time to end the Wall Street-Washington collusion. It is far past 
time to bring those Main Street values back to the way we do business 
in this country because we can still build things and grow things in 
this country. We can build and grow our energy future. We can build and 
grow the great universities of broadband technology, the electric grid 
of the future. We can still out-innovate any country in the world.
  But we need a system that rewards innovation and rewards following 
the rules instead of bailing out failure and collusion. That's the line 
in the sand we're trying to draw now. Those days are over of rewarding 
failure, of rewarding the backroom deals. It is time to reward 
innovation. It's time to reward that hard work of the farmer and the 
small business owner, where two out of every three new jobs in America 
will come from that small business owner.
  So, instead of a system that's tilted entirely towards the biggest 
players, what about giving everyday Americans a chance, working class, 
middle class Americans, small business owners who have great ideas and 
understand the principle of following the rules? We have for too long 
had a system that has rewarded all the worst behaviors in Washington 
and Wall Street together. Now we have a chance. We have a moment to say 
rules of decency, accountability, and fairness.
  But there are those in this building who say they will stop at 
nothing and use all means necessary to make sure that that debate never 
happens because they know that the more the American people understand 
about the derivative schemes and mortgage-backed securities and exotic 
mechanisms they came up with, the more they realize that it was just 
simply rich and powerful people gambling with their money and their 
retirement security.
  That time is done. It is time for Main Street values to come to 
Washington.

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