Dear Friend,

For years regulatory loopholes and lax oversight allowed Wall Street and big banks to take unnecessary and irresponsible risks, jeopardizing not only their investors’ money but also the health of our economy as a whole. This reckless behavior led directly to the financial crisis and deep recession from which we’re just now beginning to recover.

Earlier this month the House took a major step toward preventing such a crisis from happening again by passing the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (H.R. 4173). I was proud to vote for this bill which will protect consumers from abusive lending practices, bring transparency and accountability to Wall Street, and end government bailouts of so-called “too big to fail” institutions like AIG.

The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act establishes a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency to protect families and small businesses by ensuring that bank loans, mortgages, and credit cards are fair, affordable, understandable, and transparent. It will end the predatory lending practices that put hundreds of thousands of people into homes they could not afford to keep. We already have rules to prohibit companies from selling us toasters that might burn down our homes; it’s time we enact similar rules to bar the financial industry from offering predatory mortgages to people who can’t afford them.

The bill imposes tough new rules on the riskiest financial practices that gambled with your money and caused the financial crash, like the credit default swaps that devastated AIG. The bill requires enhanced oversight and transparency requirements for the complex derivatives market and for credit rating agencies, whose seal of approval gave way to excessively risky practices that led to the financial crisis. The legislation also addresses over-the-top executive pay by allowing a ‘say on pay’ vote for shareholders, requiring independent directors to sit on compensation committees, and limiting risky executive pay practices that jeopardize banks’ safety and soundness.

Under this bill, taxpayers would be protected from reckless behavior by Wall Street firms and their overpaid executives. “Too big to fail” financial institutions like AIG or Lehman Brothers would be dissolved in an orderly and controlled process long before their risky and irresponsible behavior threatens to bring down the entire economy. This process would be paid for entirely by shareholders, creditors and assets of the failed companies, not taxpayers.

For years Wall Street has reaped the spoils of success with no penalties for failure -- a prescription for reckless behavior if there ever was one. The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act will establish common sense reforms that will better protect consumers and prevent Wall Street excesses that threaten the well being of our economy. Please take a moment to fill out the survey on the right, and feel free to forward this to your family and friends.