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

Floor Speech

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Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, a year ago as home foreclosures shot up and retirement accounts fell to new lows, after years of permissiveness toward corporate misconduct, the Bush administration responded by handing Wall Street the biggest subprime loan in American history using American taxpayer money. I opposed that Bush bailout because it did not provide adequate protection for our taxpayers. I wanted those who caused the crisis to be responsible for a little more of the cleanup. Instead, Wall Street banks took taxpayer money and they continued their scams with teaser rates and hiding rate increases in the fine print.

Well, now today through this legislation, we respond with extensive reforms. Maybe not all the reforms that I personally would prefer, but reforms that can really empower the cops on the beat. One of the most important of these is the Consumer Finance Protection Agency envisioned by Professor Elizabeth Warren, who Democrats appointed to head the oversight committee over all of these bailout funds. Professor Warren is independent. She is a visionary and an expert in this area. Working with our colleagues Representatives Miller, Delahunt, Frank, and others of us, we have provided cops on the beat to address abusive lending practices that helped cause this crisis to see that they do not plague consumers once again.

There's a line in an old Hank Williams, Jr. song, ``The cops are against the robbers but the laws are against the cops.'' We need this law to create a new squad of financial cops whose sole job is to protect taxpayers from others' greed. It is working families that we cannot let fail, and it is time we enacted the meaningful protections for American consumers that are embodied in this legislation.

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