Financial Reform

Floor Speech

Mr. GUTIERREZ. Madam Speaker, the old joke around Congress is that the Senate is Washington's legislative hospice: a place where good bills and ideas go to die a slow and quiet death.

I had really hoped that, given the necessity for financial reform today, this joke would have been proven wrong. Unfortunately, many of the reforms passed in the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009, including strong consumer protections and much-needed reforms to the industry, are being watered down.

The latest victim of this appeasement and the most egregious example of the Senate's appeasement strategy for Wall Street lobbyists is here, which is the removal this week of the dissolution fund. I made sure that this dissolution fund was included in the House bill. It was intended to act much like your car insurance by discouraging risky behavior.

Let's say that a bank like Goldman Sachs drove a new Ferrari down the road with little regard for traffic or public safety. It would then be assessed more in fees to the fund than a bank that drives safely and observes all the posted signals.

Think again. Under the new plan in the Senate, Goldman can drive its Ferrari any way it wants, and when it crashes, the American public will have to pay.

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