[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 1]
[House]
[Pages 1169-1170]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   GOVERNMENT SUES STANDARD & POOR'S

  (Ms. KAPTUR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to acknowledge the U.S. 
Department of Justice for finally taking some substantive action 
against one of the credit rating agencies, Standard & Poor's, for its 
role in causing the greatest economic crisis since the Great 
Depression.
  When Wall Street's housing bubble burst in 2008, it sent shock waves

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through our economy. That shock wave may not have been so destructive 
if credit rating agencies like Standard & Poor's did not create fraud.
  Rather than assessing real risk and due diligence on the securities, 
Standard & Poor's invented a system of defrauding investors by 
providing the highest rating as long as the clients paid Standard & 
Poor's enough money. If Standard & Poor's actually rated the mortgage 
securities for what they were truly worth, our entire banking system 
and economy may not have collapsed.
  While the Department of Justice should be praised for taking some 
action against Standard & Poor's, other rating agencies were left out 
of the case. And the fact is Justice's case is only a civil one, not a 
criminal one. That tells you who really holds political power in our 
country.
  Thanks to Wall Street, America lost over 8 million jobs. American 
households lost over $19 trillion in wealth. Yet no major Wall Street 
executive has ever faced the threat of jail time. Real cases could 
yield real dollars back to our Treasury and help America pay the bills 
that resulted from the Great Recession beginning in 2008.

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