Financial Regulatory Reform

Floor Speech

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Mrs. MURRAY. As we prepare to consider legislation that includes some of the strongest reforms of Wall Street ever, it is important that we not lose sight of exactly what is on the line for the American people; that we will not allow complicated financial products and terminology to distract from the fact that this is a debate about fairness, about family finances, and protecting against another economic collapse; that we remember for Wall Street lobbyists, this may be complex, but for the American people it is pretty simple. For them this is a debate about whether they can walk into a bank and sign up for a mortgage or apply for a credit card or start a retirement plan.

Are the rules on their side when they do that, or are they with the big banks on Wall Street? For far too long, the financial rules of the road have favored big banks and credit card companies and Wall Street. For far too long they have abused those rules. Whether it was gambling with the money in our pension funds or making bets they could not cover or peddling mortgages to people they knew could never pay, Wall Street made expensive choices that came at the expense of working families. Wall Street used its ``anything goes'' rules to create a situation where everybody else paid, and Wall Street created a system that put their own short-term profits before the long-term interests of this country.

The simple truth is, it is time to end this system that puts Wall Street before Main Street. It is time to put families back in control of their own finances. It is time to focus on making sure the rules protect those sitting around the dinner table, not those sitting around the board room table. To do that, we have to pass strong Wall Street reform that cannot be ignored. Those reforms, I believe, have to include three core principles: a strong, independent consumer protection agency; an end to taxpayer bailouts; and tools to ensure that Americans have the financial know-how that empowers them to make smart choices about their own finances and helps them avoid making the same poor decisions that helped create this crisis.

First and foremost, Wall Street needs a watchdog. Right now what we have is a patchwork of Federal agencies, none of which are tasked with focusing solely on consumer protection. What we have is confusion and duplication and an abdication of responsibility. What we have, quite simply, is not working. What we need is a single, strong, independent agency, a cop on the beat whose sole function is to protect consumers, a cop on the street who will expose big bank ripoffs and end unfair fees and curb out-of-control credit card and mortgage rates. We need a cop on the street that ensures when one makes important financial decisions, the terms are clear. The risks are laid out on the table, and the banks and other financial companies offering them are being upfront. What we need is one agency with one mission looking out for one group of people, and that is American families.

Secondly, Wall Street reform must spell an end to the taxpayer-financed bailout. There is nothing that makes me or my constituents in Washington State angrier than the fact that Wall Street ran up this huge bill, and we had to pick up the tab. Wall Street reform has to end that once and for all. It has to be a death sentence for banks that engage in reckless practices, and it must make them pay for their funeral arrangements, if they do.

Third, reform has to address the fact that Wall Street is not alone in deserving blame for this crisis. Therefore, it must not be the only target of reform. We cannot ignore the fact that millions of Americans walked into sometimes predatory home loan agencies all across the country, unprepared to make big, important financial decisions. We have to acknowledge that too many Americans put too little thought into signing on the dotted line. Those bad decisions had a huge impact. That is why I have been working so hard to pass a bill I introduced called the Financial and Economic Literacy Improvement Act.

That legislation would change the way we approach educating Americans about managing their own finances and making good decisions about housing and employment and retirement. We add a fourth R to the basics of reading and writing and arithmetic. That is resource management. It gives Americans, young and old, the basic financial skills to heed warnings in the fine print they are signing and avoid mounting debt. I believe if we are going to avoid many of the mistakes that led to this crisis, we need a similar component in the bill we work on next week.

We all know the old adage that sunlight is the best disinfectant. With all of the reforms I have been talking about today, we have the potential to bring a whole lot of sunlight to Wall Street. But as we have seen in the lead up to this crisis and with Wall Street's response now to our reform effort so far, they don't like to do their work in the sunlight. They like to do it in back rooms. I have heard they have had some company recently in those back rooms. I have heard that over the last several days, some of our colleagues on the other side have been huddling with Wall Street lobbyists to figure out how they can kill this bill that is coming to us. They want to figure out how they can preserve the status quo and what they have today. They want to talk their way out of change. They have been calling out to special interests in Washington and bankers back on Wall Street and big money donors. In fact, just about everyone has been invited to those meetings except, of course, the American people. That is because the vast majority of Americans, including the hard-working families in my State who were hurt by this crisis through no fault of their own, want to see the strong Wall Street reforms I have talked about today passed. They want to hold Wall Street accountable for years of irresponsibility and taxpayer-funded bailouts. And more than anything, they want to make sure we never go through this again.

There is still a widely held view on Wall Street--and with too many still in DC--that the voices of the people can somehow be drowned out with big money and even bigger fabrications. Wall Street still thinks they can get away with highway robbery because, for all too long, they have. They think they can get away with telling the American people that more regulation is bad, when the absence of regulation is largely what got us into this mess.

They think people will be satisfied with watered-down rules that Wall Street can then simply step aside or go around or ignore. They think they can pull a fast one on Main Street. They are flatout wrong. I know that because I grew up literally on Main Street in Bothell, WA, working for my dad's 5-and-10-cent store with my six brothers and sisters.

I know they are wrong because Main Street is where I got my values, values such as the product of your work is what you can actually show in the till at the end of the day; that if that money was short, you dealt with the consequences. If it was more than you expected, you knew that more difficult days could lie ahead; values like a good transaction was one that was good for your business and for your customer; that personal responsibility meant owning up to your mistakes and making them right; that one business relied on all the others on the same street; and, importantly, that our customers were not prey and businesses were not predators, and an honest business was a successful one.

Those are the values I learned on Main Street growing up. Believe me, those same values are still strong for our country today. They exist in small towns such as the one in which I grew up and in big cities in every one of our States.

Next week, when we bring a strong Wall Street reform bill to the floor, everyone in the Senate is going to hear from people who still hold values like that very dear. I am sure they will tell us in no uncertain terms: It is time to end Wall Street's excesses. It is time to bring some sanity back into the system, to protect our consumers, to end bailouts and back-room deals, to restore personal responsibility and bring back accountability.

I am hopeful we will all listen because there certainly is a lot on the line for the American people. They deserve all of our support.

I yield the floor.

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