[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 161 (2015), Part 13]
[House]
[Pages 17951-17952]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                   THE RETURN TO PRUDENT BANKING ACT

  (Ms. KAPTUR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I rise to encourage you to join with me and 
69 of our colleagues, a total of 70 already, who have signed on to 
cosponsor H.R. 381, the Return to Prudent Banking Act. This bipartisan 
bill would restore the provisions of the Glass-Steagall banking law 
that separated prudent banking from wild speculation in the financial 
realm.
  Yesterday marked the 16th year, to the day, that Congress repealed 
the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999, bestowing on financial institutions and 
investment firms the ability to put the life savings and deposits of 
the American people at greater risk.
  I was one of the 57 Members of this Congress who voted against that 
repeal of Glass-Steagall. At that time, my colleagues and I were told 
by Wall Street that the banks were strangled by outdated restrictions, 
that the repeal was a modern experiment in deregulation; so Congress 
repealed this bedrock law, over our objections.
  Look where that decision took America. We witnessed a terrible market 
crash in 2008; now, slow growth and the outrageous enormous 
accumulation of banking assets in a handful of institutions like JP 
Morgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America. They are raking in 
record-shattering profits while paying depositors almost nothing on 
their interest or on certificates of deposit as wages for working-class 
Americans continue to flatline.
  The original Glass-Steagall Act served our country well. It laid the 
foundation for an unprecedented half century without financial panics 
or crises. Just as important, it contributed to a right-sized banking 
system focused on serving our economy and society as a whole rather 
than enriching itself at everyone else's expense.
  This Congress must reinstate the regulatory prudence of the Glass-
Steagall Act. Without these proper safeguards, it is only a matter of 
time before Wall Street's greedy operatives once again steer the 
American economy over the precipice.
  Therefore, I urge my colleagues to cosponsor H.R. 381, the Return to 
Prudent Banking Act of 2015. Help restore

[[Page 17952]]

prudence, discipline, and sanity to our financial system and, in turn, 
real economic growth to America.

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