Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act

Floor Speech

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Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, Congress does not have the courage to act on gun violence, but young people across this country are showing the way. They are speaking up, and they are demanding action. I honor them, and I commit to fight alongside them.

I am going to read the names of some of those lost from Massachusetts. They didn't get a chance to join this fight before they died from gun violence, so I take this opportunity to join them to the young people who are fighting today for sensible gun reforms.

Gerrod Brown, 16 years old; Anthony Scaccia, 6 years old; Angel Suazo, 16 years old; Alejandro Lorente, 11 years old; Tenzin Kunkhyen, 16 years old; Janmarcos Pena, 9 years old; Chantal Matiyosus, 16 years old; Latoya Graham, 15 years old; Brian Crowell, 12 years old; Ross Mathieu, 12 years old; Liquarry Jefferson, 8 years old.

Thank you, Mr. President.

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Ms. WARREN. Mr. President, on Friday I held a townhall in Springfield, MA. On Saturday we had another townhall, this time in Weymouth, MA. I met with kids at Weymouth High School who are forming a ``Never Again'' group and who want to pass some sensible gun regulations. I met with Dreamers who want to pass DACA. I met with people who fled the hurricanes in Puerto Rico and who want to get a comprehensive plan for rebuilding the island. I met with people who live along the South Shore and are deeply worried about rising oceans and the need for building resilience into our coastline housing and infrastructure. I met with people alarmed by the rising cost of healthcare and about Republican efforts to roll back ObamaCare, Medicaid, and Medicare. I met someone who wants to see us focus more on criminal justice reform.

There is so much Congress could do. There are so many problems the American people are asking us to solve, but not one single person at any of my townhalls, meetings, press interviews, or picking up pizza at Armando's asked for Congress to work on rolling back the rules on some of the biggest banks in the country so they will have a chance to crash the economy again, and that is what the bill on the floor of the Senate does--really. Don't just take my word for it.

The Congressional Budget Office experts say the bill will increase the chances that taxpayers will have to bail out the big banks again. CBO also says the bill could allow Wall Street banks, like Citigroup and JPMorgan Chase, to significantly reduce their capital requirements. Professor Jeffrey Gordon, an expert in financial regulation at Columbia Law School, says the bill ``will produce a race-to-the-bottom dynamic that will dramatically increase the chance of another financial crisis.'' The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg both editorialized that the bill includes dangerous giveaways to big banks. Nobody back in Massachusetts asked for that.

Buried down in the details of the bill are even more landmines for American families. The bill guts protections for families who buy traditional and mobile homes, and it undermines our ability to enforce civil rights laws--and for what? So banks that are already making record profits can tack on a little more to their bottom line?

If the Senate is going to spend 2 weeks dealing with the big banks, we should be making the rules tougher, not easier. Today, I introduced the Ending Too Big to Jail Act, which would help make sure that big bank executives are hauled out of their corner offices in handcuffs the next time they break the law. That would do more for America's working families than anything in this bill, and I am going to fight to help make it law.

What does it say about Washington Republicans and Democrats who can't come together to support commonsense gun reforms or solutions for working families but can come together to deregulate big banks on the 10th anniversary of the start of the 2008 financial crisis?

Here is what I think it says: Washington has become completely disconnected from the real problems in people's lives. This place works great for people who can hire armies of fancy lobbyists and write big checks, but it doesn't work for anyone else.

This is personal for me. I grew up in Oklahoma on the ragged edge of the middle class. My family struggled, and when it looked like things were getting a little bit better, my daddy had a heart attack and he lost his job and we nearly lost our home. I was 12 years old, and I know what it feels like to hear your mother cry every night. I know what it feels like to wonder if you will have to change schools or move to another town because the bank is going to take your house away. I know it because I lived it.

When the economy collapsed 10 years ago, I would go to bed at night thinking about the millions of people across this country who worked hard, who played by the rules, and then had their dignity stripped away because somebody they never met gambled with their family's future and lost. I wondered back then about the kids. I wondered about their mothers. I wondered about their daddies. A foreclosure isn't just some dry financial transaction; it is the kind of event that can tear a family apart.

The American people aren't going to stand by while big banks and other giant corporations run this economy and this Congress for their own benefit. Soon--maybe not today, maybe not next week, maybe not even in the next election, but soon they will demand a government that works for the people.

Thank you.

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