Providing For Further Consideration Of H.R. 4173, Wall Street Reform And Consumer Protection Act Of 2009

Floor Speech

Mr. DRIEHAUS. Madam Speaker, when the American people listen to this debate, they hear a lot of rhetoric, but they don't get much in the way of facts as they were not able to sit through all of the committee hearings which so many of us went through. I want to go through some facts because I hear about amendments not being offered.

The fact of the matter is that we have spent weeks marking up this bill in committee. We had over 65 hours of debate alone in the markup. The hearings concerning these issues have been going on for the entire year. The number of Republican amendments heard in committee was 137. One hundred thirty-seven Republican amendments were heard in committee. There were over 50 rollcall votes on those Republican amendments. There were over 140 Democratic amendments and over 30 bipartisan amendments. There were days and days of markup in considering the legislation.

What the Republicans don't want you to pay any attention to is their inaction for years on these critical issues. We had predatory lending legislation in 2001. They don't want to let you know that it was ignored, that it was ignored again in 2002, in 2003, in 2004, in 2005, in 2006, and in 2007. They don't want you to know that, for all of the years that they were in power, they failed to take up this legislation.

Now we have legislation, and they bring out stacks of paper with fewer words than in a Harry Potter book. I don't know if we have to get as small as ``Good Night, Moon'' or as ``Harold and the Purple Crayon.'' I'm not quite sure what it takes. This is a big topic, and that's why we took so much time in committee to address the complexities of a derivatives market run astray. That's why we took the time to address the complexity of mortgage-backed securities, which wasn't addressed during those many years the Republicans were in power.

The results of that inaction are millions of foreclosures across the States, the worst recession since the Great Depression, over 700,000 jobs lost the month the President was sworn into office. This is because of the inaction of the Republican Party.

Now the American people demand that we step up and that we take action. What do they want to do? They want to do the same thing they did when they were in power year after year after year, which is nothing.

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