Wall Street Reform And Consumer Protection Act Of 2009
Floor Speech
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Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. Madam Chair, it is said that a politician will always rise to the occasion; many have tonight, and many will. But it is also said that it takes a statesman to make the occasion. And I can say to you without reservation, hesitation, or equivocation, there is one great statesman among us tonight, and that is the honorable Chair of the Financial Services Committee who has made this occasion. And it should be intuitively obvious to the most casual observer that he has made this occasion because of a mandate from the American public, but also in spite of the efforts of many.
I would have us note that this newfound theory of ``less is best,'' this newfound theory of 170 pages is better than 1,279 pages, that this newfound theory can be improved upon. Rather than have 170 pages, why not have just one page, one page with nothing on it, or because we are all educated, let's just have one page with laissez faire, because that's what got us here, laissez faire, invidious laissez faire. This is what produced 327s; mortgages with 3 years of a fixed rate and 27 years of a variable rate; 228s, 2 years of a fixed rate--many people are very much aware of what I speak because they have suffered from these insidious products--2 years of a fixed rate and 28 years of a variable rate.
And then we had these teaser rates that coincided with prepayment penalties, such that if you wanted to get out of the teaser rate before it's set to an adjusted rate you had to pay an enormous prepayment penalty that locked people into these teaser rates. And of course we had the naked shorts. People were actually betting that the market would go down without money to cover the bets. And of course we had what we called the credit default swaps, the whole notion that you can bet that something won't fail and not have the money to cover your bet. Even in Vegas you have to have the money to cover your bet. AIG was engaging in a gambling racket that at any other time and place could have been declared unlawful and people could have gone to jail.
And of course this laissez faire, hands-off attitude gave us the so-called ``too big to fail''; too big to fail, which is just the right size to regulate, just the right size to separate into smaller pieces, and just the right size to eliminate, which is what this bill, H.R. 4173, does. It puts ``too big to fail'' in a position such that it will not only be regulated, but it will be eliminated. And it will be done in an orderly process, very much akin to the way we move in when banks are failing, and on one Friday it closes, and on Monday a new bank opens, perhaps not as fast, but the concept is the same.
``Too big to fail'' will no longer exist.
So, Mr. Chairman, I want to commend you, and I want to thank you for allowing me to be a part of this process and a part of this legislation. I want to thank you because I want you to know that there would be no H.R. 4173 without your leadership. Your leadership has clearly made a difference in the lives of people in this country.
The Acting CHAIR. The time of the gentleman has expired.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield the gentleman an additional minute.
Mr. AL GREEN of Texas. And it is my absolute belief that when historians look back through the vista of time, they will say that the chairperson of this committee left big tracks in the sands of time, and that he made a difference in our lives for all time.
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