[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 156 (2010), Part 4]
[Senate]
[Pages 5772-5773]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                      FINANCIAL REGULATORY REFORM

  Mr. SANDERS. Mr. President, a front-page story of the New York Times 
today points to the fact of the enormous power of big money in terms of 
financial reform. They say:

       With so much money at stake, it is not surprising that more 
     than 1,500 lobbyists, executives, bankers and others have 
     made their way to the Senate committee that on Wednesday will 
     take up legislation to rein in derivatives. . . .

  When Congress deregulated Wall Street and allowed them to do pretty 
much anything they wanted to do--which brought us to where we are 
today; i.e., a massive recession--they spent, over a 10-year period, $5 
billion--$5 billion--in order to work their way on Congress.
  Last year, as we began to address financial reform, they spent $300 
million. So the issue we are debating now is not whether Congress will 
regulate Wall Street, it is whether Congress will continue to be 
regulated by Wall Street.
  Their power is extraordinary. Their money is unlimited. If there was 
ever a time in American history where the Senate had to start standing 
up to big money interests and represent the needs of ordinary 
Americans, this is the time. The American people are looking.
  Let me just touch on four issues that I think are key, if we are 
serious--underline ``serious''--about financial reform.
  No. 1, we have to break up the huge financial institutions which are 
at the cause of the crisis we are in and which exert so much power over 
our economy. The four major U.S. banks--Bank of America, Citigroup, 
JPMorgan Chase, and Wells Fargo--issue two-thirds of the credit cards 
in this country, write half of the mortgages, and collectively hold 
$7.4 trillion in assets, about 52 percent of the Nation's estimated 
total output last year. Despite the fact that we bailed these banks out 
because they were too big to fail, incredibly, three out of four of 
these institutions are now larger today than they were when we bailed 
them out.
  Enough is enough. I am joined as a progressive by many conservatives 
who understand that we cannot continue to have that concentration of 
ownership, not just in terms of the liability to the American people in 
terms of too big to fail but in terms of their monopoly control on the 
entire economy. So if we are serious about financial reform, now is the 
time to start breaking up these behemoths that exhibit certain enormous 
impacts on our whole economy.
  No. 2, we have to end the absurdity of a Wall Street selling 
trillions of dollars in exotic financial tools, instruments, at the 
same time small and medium-sized businesses are unable to get the loans 
they need in order to create the jobs our country desperately is in 
need of. At a time when we are in the midst of a major recession, at a 
time when we are losing our competitive advantages in the global 
economy, it is absolutely absurd that our largest financial 
institutions continue to trade trillions in esoteric financial 
institutions which make Wall Street the largest gambling

[[Page 5773]]

casino in the world. We need to have them start investing in the real 
economy, the productive economy, in small and medium-sized businesses, 
in transforming our energy system and helping us rebuild our 
infrastructure, and in transportation and other desperate needs. They 
can no longer live isolated from the real world and engage in bets on 
whether oil is going to go up 6 months from now or whether the housing 
market goes down.
  If we are serious about real financial reform, we need to pass 
national usury legislation. I get calls every week from Vermonters who 
are sick and tired of paying 25-percent or 30-percent interest rates on 
their credit cards. Every major religion points out that usury is 
immoral. It is wrong to charge people outrageously high interest rates 
when they are in desperate need. We need national usury legislation. I 
will be offering an amendment which will cap at 15 percent the amount 
financial institutions can charge on credit cards, which is exactly 
what exists for credit unions today.
  Lastly, if we are serious about real financial reform, we need 
transparency at the Federal Reserve. The Fed cannot continue to operate 
in almost total secrecy. During the bailout, large financial 
institutions received trillions of dollars in zero or near-zero 
interest loans. Who received those loans and what were the terms? The 
Fed is not telling the American people. Did some of those banks turn 
around and in a mammoth welfare scam invest that Fed money, zero-
interest money, in government Treasury bonds at 3 percent or 4 percent? 
The Fed is not telling us the answer to that question as well. It is 
time we had transparency at the Fed so the American people know what 
our Central Bank is doing.
  Most of all, we need to end the ``heads bankers win, tails everybody 
else loses'' financial system that currently exists in the United 
States today. The American people are profoundly disgusted with the 
greed and recklessness and illegal behavior on Wall Street. They cannot 
understand how the very same people who created this recession in which 
millions of workers have lost their jobs, people have lost their homes, 
people have lost their savings, that these very same people are now 
receiving multimillion dollar bonuses. People don't understand that, 
nor do I, in fact. So we need a new Wall Street. We need real financial 
reform. I hope, in fact, that the Senate and the House are prepared to 
stand up to the very powerful special interests who do not want us to 
do that.
  With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois is recognized.
  Mr. BURRIS. Mr. President, when I came to Washington over a year ago, 
this country faced an economic crisis greater than anything we have 
seen in generations. So my colleagues and I set out to work. Under 
President Obama's strong leadership, we passed a landmark stimulus 
package that stopped the bleeding. We did what was necessary to prevent 
a complete economic collapse and set America back on the road to 
recovery.
  Since that time, we have come a long way. Many key economic 
indicators have started to turn around, but we are not out of the woods 
yet. The economy has started to grow again, but unemployment is still 
too high, and rampant foreclosures continue to threaten families in my 
home State and across the country. During the first 3 months of this 
year, almost 15,000 homeowners went into foreclosure in Illinois alone. 
Despite our best efforts to modify mortgages to make them more 
affordable, that is twice as many foreclosures as we saw during the 
same period last year. This is unacceptable. We are making progress, 
but it simply isn't enough.
  Today, America no longer stands at the brink of disaster, but we are 
still vulnerable to the same recklessness that led to this crisis in 
the first place. For years, at big corporations such as Goldman Sachs, 
Wall Street bankers packaged bad mortgages together and sold them to 
investors. They knew these investment vehicles would inevitably fail, 
so they turned around and bet against them. They bet against the 
American people. They sought to make a profit off of the misfortunes of 
their own customers. They allegedly committed fraud, and that is why 
they are currently being sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission 
on behalf of the American people. As a former banker, I understand the 
seriousness of this misconduct. I know it continues to pose a dramatic 
threat to the American financial system.
  That is why we need to pass strong financial reform to prevent bad 
behavior on Wall Street from sinking ordinary folks on Main Street. I 
urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the reform legislation 
introduced by Senator Dodd. This bill would prevent Goldman Sachs and 
other companies from getting us into a mess in the first place, and it 
can help ensure that we will never end up in this position again.
  This legislation creates a consumer protection bureau designed to 
shield ordinary Americans from unfair, deceptive, and abusive financial 
practices. It would establish an oversight council tasked with keeping 
a close eye on emerging risks so that we are never taken by surprise 
again. It would end so-called too big to fail, protect taxpayers from 
unnecessary risks, and eliminate the need for future bailouts.
  This bill would also increase transparency and accountability for 
banks, hedge funds, and the derivative market, so a big company such as 
Goldman Sachs would not be able to get away with their alleged fraud 
anymore.
  These basic reforms will establish clear rules of the road for the 
financial services industry so we can keep the market free and fair 
without risking another economic collapse. But if we fail to take 
action, if we do not pass this reform bill, then we will be right back 
where we started, with no safeguards against this kind of deception and 
abuse in the future. I call upon my colleagues to join me in supporting 
Senator Dodd's bill when it comes to the floor this week. I ask my 
friends on both sides of the aisle to stand with me on the side of the 
American people. Let us pass financial reform legislation, and let's do 
it without delay.
  I yield the floor.

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