Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 - Continued

Floor Speech

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Mr. DURBIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

Mr. MERKLEY. Certainly.

Mr. DURBIN. Let me ask the Senator: As I understand the amendment of the Republican Senator, it goes back to the old days when there was virtually no consumer financial protection. The bill we have before us here--that Senator Dodd and the Banking Committee brought forward--has the strongest consumer financial protection law in the history of the United States. It has an agency with independent authority to protect Americans, but more importantly to empower Americans to make the right decisions when they are taking out a mortgage, a loan for a car, a home loan or a student loan. What the Republicans are suggesting in the Shelby amendment is to go back to the old days when there was no protection, there was no authority.

The argument is made about the fact that when it comes to mortgages, they weren't the problem, the problems were with Wall Street. But at the heart of the issue on Wall Street was the mortgage being signed by the family in Springfield, IL, and Portland, OR. So I ask the Senator: In your State, in your experience, as you look at this, if the Republicans have their way and move us back to the old days when it comes to this consumer empowerment, consumer protection, don't we run the risk of falling into another economic crisis, losing millions more jobs across America? Isn't that the risk we run if we go the route suggested by the Republican amendment?

Mr. MERKLEY. My colleague is absolutely right. Because predatory mortgage practices were at the heart of this crisis that led to securities that blew up the economy and led to the loss of millions of jobs around our Nation, with an unemployment rate in my State that has been over 12 percent. We not only have the risk of going back there, we are perhaps more at risk because we have fewer larger banks. Many investment houses that were independent are now inside those banks, in a position where, if they blow up, they will blow up the banks as well.

So unless we have this strong consumer financial protection agency, it is like taking this bill before us and sticking it in the shredder, and with it shredding the hopes and aspirations of America's working families to build strong finances in the future.

Mr. DURBIN. If the Senator will yield for another question.

Mr. MERKLEY. Yes.

Mr. DURBIN. Is it not true that last week, on three different occasions, the Republicans filibustered this bill to stop us from even starting the debate on this bill, and it was only when we reached the point after the Goldman Sachs hearing--when there was this embarrassing testimony from executives, telling America what they were up to, and it all became very public--that the Republicans finally backed off their filibuster, backed off their delay of this legislation and let us come forward to debate; and that now, one of the first amendments they offer is to weaken this bill so the financial institutions and the banks are going to have more power over the economy, more power over consumers than this bill provides?

Isn't that the real history of how we got to this moment in this debate?

Mr. MERKLEY. My friend and colleague is absolutely correct; that, indeed, my colleagues across the aisle, the Republicans, voted three times to say they did not want to proceed to the bill, where their ideas would bear public scrutiny. Instead, they wanted to talk behind closed doors. You know what they were looking to do was not to strengthen this bill.

Now that the amendment has come out and been placed before us publicly, we do see that it does what we feared. It is designed to take a knife and carve the heart out of this financial reform.

Mr. DURBIN. I would ask the Senator from Oregon if he would yield for one last question.

Now that we have been through this experience where we have lost $17 trillion in American value in this economy--$17 trillion accounted for in the savings accounts of ordinary Americans in Illinois and Oregon, $17 trillion in businesses that failed and jobs that were lost--isn't it critically important that this bill from the Senate Banking Committee move forward, and that each amendment take this strong bill and make it stronger, instead of the Republican amendments, which clearly are designed to weaken this amendment and to open us up to the vulnerability of facing more job loss and more economic crisis?

Mr. MERKLEY. Well, my colleague is absolutely correct. The failure of financial rules has become so obvious and had such devastating impact for our families--as my colleague put it, $17 trillion worth of damage. That means families lost their retirements, families lost their savings for their children to go to college, and it means families have houses under water, if they are lucky. For many families, it means the loss of a job, the loss of income, and the inability to make those mortgage payments, which means they are in foreclosure and have lost their dream at every single level. That is the damage $17 trillion did to our families, and that is why every amendment to the bill we have before us should seek to say: Here is the bill and here is how we should make it stronger.

With that, Mr. President, I yield the floor.

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