Issue Position: Holding Wall Street Accountable

Issue Position

For too long, Washington let executives on Wall Street bend the rules and avoid regulations while our financial system became more and more unstable. The unchecked, greedy risks taken by big banks have threatened the savings of seniors and working families and the financial future of small businesses. By passing common-sense Wall Street Reform, we have taken significant action to eliminate taxpayer-funded bailouts, hold big banks accountable, and ensure that our economy is never again held hostage by recklessness on Wall Street.

The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act creates new procedures to shut down "too big to fail" financial firms before risky and irresponsible behavior threatens to bring down the entire economy. It ends costly taxpayer bailouts with new procedures to unwind failing companies that pose the greatest risk -- paid for by the financial industry and not the taxpayers. Additionally, it imposes tough new rules on the riskiest financial practices, including a strong "Volcker rule" that restricts large financial firms with commercial banking operations from trading in speculative investments.

The bill establishes a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to protect families and small businesses by ensuring that bank loans, mortgages, and credit cards are fair, affordable, understandable, and transparent. It will end abusive predatory lending practices that occurred during the subprime lending frenzy by establishing a simple federal standard for all home loans, requiring additional disclosures for consumers on mortgages and establishing new penalties for irresponsible lending.

The Wall Street Reform bill also brings to an end the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) or Wall Street bailout. The bill bans any new programs under TARP and requires that repayments of TARP investments be used to reduce the national debt. Congresswoman Kosmas has been focused on bringing the TARP program to an end. Last year, she voted against the release of the second half of TARP funds and introduced the TARP Sunset and Fiscal Responsibility Act, legislation that would end the TARP program and use the remaining funds to pay down the debt.

The fiscally responsible legislation has been endorsed by the AARP, Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union, Council of Institutional Investors, and the National Restaurant Association, among other organizations.

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