Washington, DC, Dec 9, 2009 -
Thank you Mr. Chairman Peterson and also thank you to Ranking Member Lucas.

The work we did on the Ag committee I think is the kind of common sense solution that Americans are looking for.  We worked together to come up with regulatory reform in the Ag committee with respect to the derivates legislation, and we saw overwhelming support from not just Democrats but Republicans. Because people in that committee know what the American public knows: for the last 10 years, Washington has failed to regulate our financial markets. And as a result, some of those on Wall Street and at the big financial firms have taken that opportunity to gamble with our money.  They put our future at risk, and they put the very American dream that so many Americans spend their time hoping and praying for, at risk. And it is time for us to respond to that. They precipitated -- the failures in Washington and failures on Wall Street -- precipitated the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.  And it’s our job here and now to come up with solutions to that.  Wall Street melted down and Main Street paid the price.  This cannot happen again.

So what do we need to do?  We need to regulate what wasn’t regulated.  So many people now recognize that no one was looking at systemic risk.  No one was looking at the AIGs of the world and seeing what they were up to.  There were whole sections of the derivative marketplace that no one was regulating -- in fact, by law that was passed here in Washington, no one was responsible for looking at it. That cannot continue.

There were whole parts of the consumer world that were not regulated: mortgage brokers, payday lenders.  This cannot continue.  We must regulate what was unregulated to bring everything into the system.  

We need to protect our consumers.  We talked about payday loans and mortgage brokers, and the kind of liar loans that were put out there and passed.  No one was responsible -- strictly -- for looking and protecting our consumers.  This legislation will do that.  With the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, there will be a focus on protecting our consumers.  That’s something that’s common sense.  That’s something that all Americans want us to do here in Washington.

And the last thing that everybody in my district wants -- and I think Americans all over this country want -- they want protection from taxpayers having to fund any future bailouts.  Nobody thinks that Main Street should be bailing out Wall Street.  It shouldn’t have happened in the past, and sure should not happen again in the future.  It’s critically important that we fix that.  The bill that we have in front of us does set up dissolution authority.  It’s funded by the large financial institutions to help shut down those that fail.  That’s what needed to happen in the past.  That’s what needs to happen in the future.  That’s the kind of common sense reform that we all need to come behind.

We need to regulate what wasn’t regulated, we need to protect our consumers, and we need to make sure that taxpayers never again have to fund a bailout. That’s what we’re working on here, that’s what this legislation will do, and I think it’s very important that we come together to pass this and protect America’s taxpayers, protect our financial system, and get our economy moving again.

Thank you Mr. Speaker.