Obama (again) touts Wall Street package
President Obama again promoted a new package of Wall Street regulations in his Saturday radio address, telling listeners that "we are on the cusp of enacting the toughest financial reforms since the Great Depression."Taping the address Friday just hours after House and Senate negotiators put together a final bill, Obama said the new plan would "empower our people with consumer protections" and prevent the kind of financial meltdown that gutted the economy in 2008.
"We're still digging ourselves out of an economic crisis that happened largely because there wasn't strong enough oversight on Wall Street," Obama said. "We can't build a strong economy in America over the long-run without ending this status quo, and laying a new foundation for growth and prosperity."
Obama is in Canada this weekend at the G-20 summit.
As the House and Senate prepare to vote on a final bill, some Republicans said some of the restrictions go too far and would stifle growth.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said "everyone recognizes the need to rein in Wall Street to prevent another crisis." But McConnell added that Republicans are "not encouraged by the fact that a bill that was supposed to address the problems of Wall Street and protect consumers is supported by the biggest banks, opposed by small business owners and still fails to address the government sponsored enterprises that were the root cause of the problem."
Here is the text of Obama's Saturday radio address:
This weekend, I'm traveling to Toronto to meet with members of the G20. There, I hope we can build on the progress we made at last year's G20 summits by coordinating our global financial reform efforts to make sure a crisis like the one from which we are still recovering never happens again. We've made great progress toward passing such reform here at home. As I speak, we are on the cusp of enacting the toughest financial reforms since the Great Depression.
I don't have to tell you why these reforms are so important. We're still digging ourselves out of an economic crisis that happened largely because there wasn't strong enough oversight on Wall Street. We can't build a strong economy in America over the long-run without ending this status quo, and laying a new foundation for growth and prosperity.
That's what the Wall Street reforms currently making their way through Congress will help us do – reforms that represent 90% of what I proposed when I took up this fight. We'll put in place the strongest consumer financial protections in American history, and create an independent agency with an independent director and an independent budget to enforce them.
Credit card companies will no longer be able to mislead you with pages and pages of fine print. You will no longer be subject to all kinds of hidden fees and penalties, or the predatory practices of unscrupulous lenders.
Instead, we'll make sure credit card companies and mortgage companies play by the rules. And you'll be empowered with easy-to-understand forms, and the clear and concise information you need to make the financial decisions that are best for you and your family.
Wall Street reform will also strengthen our economy in a number of other ways. We'll make our financial system more transparent by bringing the kinds of complex trades that helped trigger this crisis – trades in a $600 trillion derivatives market – finally into the light of day.
We'll enact what's called the Volcker Rule to make sure banks protected by a safety net like the FDIC can't engage in risky trades for their own profit. We'll create what's called a resolution authority to help wind down firms whose collapse would threaten our entire financial system. Put simply, we'll end the days of taxpayer-funded bailouts, and help make sure Main Street is never again held responsible for Wall Street's mistakes.
Beyond these reforms, we also need to address another piece of unfinished business. We need to impose a fee on the banks that were the biggest beneficiaries of taxpayer assistance at the height of our financial crisis – so we can recover every dime of taxpayer money.
Getting this far on Wall Street reform hasn't been easy. There are those who've fought tooth and nail to preserve the status quo. In recent months, they've spent millions of dollars and hired an army of lobbyists to stop reform dead in its tracks.
But because we refused to back down, and kept fighting, we now stand on the verge of victory. And I urge Congress to take us over the finish line, and send me a reform bill I can sign into law, so we can empower our people with consumer protections, and help prevent a financial crisis like this from ever happening again.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments: