The Richmond Times-Dispatch - Warner Welcomes Passage of Financial Overhaul

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By Jeff E. Schapiro

Sen. Mark R. Warner is welcoming today's final vote on an overhaul of the nation's financial regulatory system -- an Obama administration initiative in which the VirginiaDemocrat played a major role.

Warner is describing the bill -- now headed to the president for his signature -- as "good work."

Warner says one indication the hard-fought measure strikes a balance between the needs of the markets and those of the public is that it's been attacked by liberals as not doing enough and by conservatives as going too far.

"I think we kind of got it right," Warner, a member of the Banking Committee, said from his Washington office.

The legislation includes a provision -- written by Warner and Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn. -- that ends taxpayer bailouts of troubled banks and investment firms. A $700 billion rescue by the Bush administration in 2008 is fueling voter anger in both political parties.

The new law will force ailing financial institutions into bankruptcy, requiring that they speedily shed their assets. No longer, Warner argued during the long debate over the bill, will Americans have to prop up with their pocketbooks businesses depicted as too big to fail.

With the new bankruptcy provision, Warner said, "It's like the Roach Motel -- you check in, but you never check out."

Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., a member of the Joint Economic Committee, said: "The financial reform legislation passed by the Senate today is an important step forward in reining in some of the worst abuses in the financial system and improving oversight and transparency."

Webb ran in 2006, in part, on a platform of economic fairness.

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