Floor Statements

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate to conduct a hearing on on April 27, at 10 a.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Foreign Relations be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 27, 2010, at 2:15 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate to conduct a hearing entitled ``Putting Safety First: Strengthening Enforcement and Creating a Culture of Compliance at Mines and Other Dangerous Workplaces'' on April 27, 2010. The hearing will commence at 2 p.m. in room 430 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the Judiciary be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 27, 2010, at 10 a.m. in room SD-226 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building, to conduct a hearing entitled ``Oversight of the Department of Homeland Security.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 27, 2010, at 10 a.m. to conduct a hearing entitled ``Connecting Main Street to the World: Federal Efforts to Expand Small Business Internet Access.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 27, 2010, at 10 a.m., to conduct a hearing entitled ``Wall Street and the Financial Crisis: The Role of Investment Banks.''

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Select Committee on Intelligence by authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 27, 2010, at 2:30 p.m.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Competitiveness, Innovation, and Export Promotion of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 27, 2010, at 10 a.m., in room 253 of the Russell Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Water and Power be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate to conduct a hearing on April 27, 2010, at 3 p.m., in room SD-366 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the Subcommittee on Water and Wildlife of the Committee on Environment and Public Works be authorized to meet during the session of the Senate on April 27, 2010, at 10 a.m. in room 406 of the Dirksen Office Building.

Madam President, I appreciate the words from the Senator from Vermont and his support of the Brown-Kaufman amendment and his work on real Wall Street reform.

Two years ago, as we know, we were on the verge of another Great Depression. Wall Street had gorged itself on greed and junk debt. Markets panicked and chaos and hardship threatened Main Street. At the request of the Bush administration, we acted swiftly, we acted bipartisanly, to pull ourselves back from the brink of economic collapse. We saved the banks temporarily, as we should have, but Wall Street recklessness, aided and abetted by lax regulation and deregulation and appointments by the Bush administration of people far too friendly to Wall Street, had done its damage. Wall Street's greed led to more than 7 million Americans losing their jobs.

Go to Mansfield or Lima or Sandusky or Cleveland or Zanesville and see the damage it did to American manufacturing. Wall Street's excess and rampant speculation caused nearly 6 million home foreclosures. Go to neighborhoods in Over-the-Rhine in Cincinnati or go to neighborhoods on the west side of Cleveland or go to neighborhoods in north Columbus and see the damage Wall Street excess and rampant speculation caused to homes and families in my State.

Here we are 2 years later and Wall Street is continuing to risk Main Street jobs, Main Street pensions, and Main Street homes on get-rich- quick schemes. Here we are 2 years later in reach of legislation designed to put an end to the recklessness, and Wall Street and Senate Republicans--and sometimes it is hard to tell the difference--are delaying and hoping to kill any such reforms. We cannot afford to let this be delayed any further. Bear Stearns collapsed 2 years ago.

Senator Dodd, after careful thought, put out a working draft of legislation

the following November. There was a big hue and cry over that draft-- many said it was too tough on Wall Street--but Chairman Dodd continued working on the draft, talking to Republicans and Democrats on the Banking Committee and throughout the Senate. He put together bipartisan working groups, including Senators Corker and Warner, Senators Gregg and Reed, Senators Dodd and Shelby, and Senators Crapo and Schumer--a Republican and a Democrat in each negotiating team.

So we have been working on this since the start of the financial crisis. It has been months since Senator Dodd first put his legislation out for the public's review. But here we are tonight--requesting a simple up-or-down vote so we can start debate--and the entire Senate Republican caucus said no.

They are filibustering. They are delaying. I think they are trying to destroy this bill. All we are trying to do tonight is--not pass legislation; we know we are not ready to do that yet--all we are trying to do is move the bill forward so any Senator, whether it is a Republican colleague or a Democratic colleague, can offer an amendment. There are good amendments out there that can make a strong bill even stronger.

There is an amendment going to be offered by Senator Corker. He and I talked about this on our Sunday morning show this week--just yesterday--an amendment on clawing back executive compensation that he has been working on that seems to make sense.

There is an amendment Senator Kaufman and I have been working on to put size limits on banks and end the days of banks that are too big to fail. If banks are too big to fail, those banks simply are too big.

I would add, 15 years ago, the combined assets of the six largest banks in America were 17 percent of GDP. The combined assets of the six largest banks in America today are 63 percent of GDP.

There are other amendments that can finally hold Wall Street accountable for its own mistakes offered by some Republicans and some Democrats. We just want to move forward so those amendments can be considered.

So it is unfortunate when Senate Republican leadership--and I know there are Republicans who want to work with us, but when Senate Republican leadership pulls their colleagues back from doing the right thing. We saw the same tactic with the health insurance debate--delay and delay--only to find obstruction at the end. We know if they can delay and delay, as officials in the American bank associations have said, that is the best way to kill this legislation and to get their way--if they can delay this for months and months and months. We saw those same delaying tactics with essential programs such as unemployment insurance and COBRA.

This is not a time to play games with the financial well-being of hard-working Americans, of hard-working middle-class Ohioans. I wish Republican Senators could vote to do the right thing instead of simply following the political calculus that the minority leader and the rest of the Republican leadership wants. It certainly is not the will of the American people.

Just today, a Washington Post/ABC News poll release said 65 percent of Americans favor ``stricter federal regulations on the way banks and other financial institutions conduct their business.''

It certainly is not following the experiences of people in Ohio and across the country who have lost jobs and lost much of their wealth because of Wall Street greed and excess. It is not following the experiences of small business owners across the Nation.

I have talked to small business owners in Dayton and Springfield and Zanesville and Cambridge and Steubenville and Findlay who simply cannot get credit. They cannot understand, with the money Wall Street has been rewarded with, if you will--or they were bailed out with--that they still cannot get the kind of credit they need to make their businesses a success.

This legislation would make financial institutions, not American taxpayers, pay for their mistakes. We can't predict the next economic disaster, but if we protect consumers and investors, we can probably prevent it. Wall Street reform could provide the strongest consumer protections for Ohioans. No more of the tricks and the traps in the mortgage market and elsewhere that led to the near collapse of our economy.

Wall Street banks wrecked our economy, got a taxpayer-funded bailout, and are profiting again, while working Americans continue to suffer. We can't sit by any longer and continue to do nothing. We need to move now. No more meltdowns. No more bailouts. No more cutting backroom deals to prevent reform.

In order for us to get there, we need to move this bill forward. We need our Republican colleagues to say yes--not vote for the bill but just say yes to move the bill forward so we can actually have debate on the bill. We need to bring this bill out into the public light so the American people know who is fighting on their side.

I yield the floor.

Mr. President, earlier today--the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day--on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol, I test drove the energy-efficient, fuel cell-powered Chevy Cruze.

Across Ohio, next-generation fuel-efficient vehicles are being built. GM recently announced that its plant in Lordstown, OH--near Youngstown in Trumball County--would bring back a third shift of workers to the assembly line to build the Cruze.

Twelve hundred jobs are expected to be created building this new line of fuel-efficient cars that will reduce our dependence on foreign oil and reduce the pollution of our air.

Forty years ago, many were hard-pressed to see how environmental and economic objectives could coexist.

The Cuyahoga River burned in Cleveland and oil spills marred the beaches of Santa Barbara.

With Lake Erie dying, Americans demanded an end to the polluted air and water that threatened the public health and safety of our Nation.

Such tragedies served as catalysts that established the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, passed the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, and formed a public and political conscience to safeguard our environment.

Today, the Cuyahoga River--41 years after the fire--is cleaner and healthier; more than 60 different fish species are thriving, and countless families are again enjoying its natural beauty.

The modern environmental movement was marked by the efforts of citizens demanding that their government protect our health by protecting our environment.

Like so many times throughout our Nation's history, citizen activism served as vehicle for change.

The 1960s, the third progressive era of the 20th century, was defined by passage of Medicare and Medicaid, the Higher Education Act, the Voting Rights Act, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and the Civil Rights Act.

Rachel Carson's 1962 ``Silent Spring'' helped the environmental movement educate elected officials and industry leaders about threats to human safety and the importance of environmental sustainability.

U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin persuaded President Kennedy to raise the importance of the conservation through a 5-day, 11 State tour in September 1963.

Senator Nelson took the energy of that tour and found it mirrored across the country in the public's desire for cleaner air and water.

Today, we celebrate Senator Nelson's vision of Earth Day--how his teach-ins and grassroots plea translated the public's concern for the environment into political action.

On April 22, 1970, after years of planning, Earth Day activities stretched from college campuses, to city parks, to community halls across the country.

That citizen call to action spurred decades worth of environmental protections that have improved the health of our Nation's air, streams, lakes, and rivers.

Today, Earth Day is celebrated around the world. And today, our college campuses are once again spurring our Nation's environmental innovation.

In northeastern Ohio, Oberlin College built one of the Nation's first--and at the time the largest--solar-powered building in the Nation. The college is also working with the city of Oberlin to develop green spaces and energy efficient living.

Baldwin Wallace has one of the Nation's only academic programs strictly devoted to sustainability practices.

Case Western is partnering with the Cleveland Foundation to build the world's first wind turbines in fresh water.

In northwestern Ohio, the University of Toledo's Clean and Alternative Energy Incubator has helped entrepreneurs and business make Toledo a national leader in solar energy jobs.

Bowling Green State University has the first and largest commercial scale wind farm in Ohio and the Midwest.

In Central Ohio, the Ohio State University is partnering with Battelle and Edison Welding to develop cutting-edge advanced alternative energy sources.

In southern Ohio, Ohio University is conducting a full-scale wind- data collection project in Appalachia to identify the best wind-energy resources within a 2,000-square-mile 7-county region.

And just this week the University of Cincinnati was named one of the greenest universities in the country.

Across Ohio, from Youngstown State University to Akron University to the University of Dayton and Stark State Community College, Ohio's campuses continue to be a breeding ground of innovation.

The activism and expertise of our students and entrepreneurs mark tremendous progress toward a more sustainable environment.

It is a progress that has led to the largest investment in clean energy and environmental sustainability in our Nation's history.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act is making historic investments to make our water and sewer systems safer, our clean energy sources more affordable and available.

And Ohio's history of manufacturing excellence and cutting edge entrepreneurs is leading the Nation in Recovery Act funds used for clean energy.

For four decades, the environmental movement has made clear that without action, we face dangerous consequences. We risk the health of citizens, the viability of our coastal areas, and the productivity of our State's farms, forests, and fisheries.

We risk our long-term economic and national security.

Yet no longer do environmental and economic objectives conflict with each other. No longer do we needlessly pick winners and losers among regions, workers, and industries.

We have seen how despite our population growing by 50 percent in the past 40 years and the number of cars on the road having doubled over that same time, our air is 60 percent cleaner than at the time of the first Earth day in 1970, all while our economy has grown like no other in the history of the world.

Done right, our Nation can become energy independent, improve its global competitiveness, and create new jobs and technologies for our workforce.

As we plant the seeds for economic growth--for new jobs in new industries--we are also planting the seeds for a cleaner, more sustainable environment.

And that is what Earth Day represents--for workers making the Cruze in Lordstown or activists continuing to push for a cleaner environment.

Earth Day reminds us to call upon our history of innovation and perseverance to usher in a new era of prosperity for our Nation and sustainability for our plant.

I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 5 minutes.

I know the Democrats are a bit shorter than that in time. If a Republican comes, I will yield the floor more quickly if they ask.

I only have a couple of things I want to say. I just came earlier from the Agriculture Committee meeting where we passed legislation, bipartisanly, to regulate derivatives. It was a major step in financial reform. The discussion was vigorous, the discussion was not contentious, but there was a good bit of disagreement. But in the end, the committee voted bipartisanly for stronger derivative legislation. It will provide financial stability by requiring banks to put capital behind their trades. It will use transparency and accountability to prevent Wall Street banks from taking advantage of their business customers. It will reduce speculation that fuels bubbles in markets such as natural gas and mortgages.

We understand derivatives can be used responsibly by businesses to hedge commercial risk. But commercial businesses make up a relatively small part of the derivatives business. It used to make up a much larger part. A lot of the synthetics, CDOs, and other derivatives have become way more commonplace and, parenthetically but importantly, put us in the position that we are in as a nation in our economy.

I commend Senator Lincoln for her advocacy and leadership in voting out a strong derivatives regulation. The reason this is so important is we know what happened because of Wall Street excess. What happened is some homeowners in Bryan, OH, lost their homes. We know that retirees in Ravenna, OH, lost a good bit of their wealth. We know that workers in Dayton, OH, lost their jobs. That is repeated in Charlotte, and Raleigh, and Asheville, NC. It is true in Marietta and Cleveland and Bedford, OH, that because of Wall Street excesses, too many people lost their homes, lost their wealth, lost their retirement, lost their jobs.

This legislation today, coupled with Senator Dodd's legislation coming out of Banking, was bipartisanly passed. It will move us in the right direction. It was bipartisan but not a compromise of Wall Street. When bipartisanship means bring Wall Street to the table to write the legislation, that is not what the American people want. What bipartisanship means is that our committee writes strong language and Republicans and Democrats, at least one Republican and Democrats, come together. That is what we ought to do. That is the direction we should go. That is what responsible governing is all about.

I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to engage in a colloquy with Senator Kaufman for up to 30 minutes as in morning business.

I want to believe what I just heard. I do. I believe the genuineness and the sincerity of the words from my colleague from Arizona. I also, though--and I agree with him there are things we need to fix in this bill. There always are. And we can work to improve it.

I met only 2 hours ago a dozen manufacturers from Ohio--mostly metal- working companies, stamping, bending metal, all of that--who came to see me to talk about credit. Their frustration with the banking system and Wall Street is pretty deep and pretty intense. Anger, frustration-- I will not speak for them, to be sure. But it is pretty clear that Wall Street has not served them well and has not served this country well.

As I said, I know we need to fix some things about this bill. A guy years ago told me: Don't tell me what you believe. Show me what you do; I will tell you what you believe.

When I listen to leadership on the other side, especially to our colleague from Kentucky, I really do watch what he does, not just what he says. I know he says this bill does not work because it will mean more bailouts. That is battle tested, focus group tested, poll tested. That is the right thing to say you are against the bill.

But more than that, I watch what he does, and I watch what Republicans have done on this bill. Back in December 100 bank lobbyists met with Republican leadership in the House to talk about how to defeat any kind of Wall Street reform.

Earlier this month, Senator McConnell and Senator Cornyn--Senator McConnell, the Republican leader; Senator Cornyn is head of the Senate Republican Campaign Committee--went to New York and met with 25 hedge fund and other Wall Street executives to figure out how to defeat the bill and to do what--you know, what you would expect. The best way to beat this bill is elect more Republicans. We need help. All of that.

So when I hear them talk about bipartisan, that they want a bipartisan bill, what they really mean, and I know Senator Kaufman and I have talked about this--what they really mean is, we want Wall Street to come to the table and help us write the bill. That is what is bipartisan, in the same way that ``bipartisan'' in the health care bill of the last year was, we want to invite the insurance companies to the table and have them help write the bill.

The public wants bipartisan. They want us to work together. They want us to cooperate. We do that in a lot of things. But on a big bill like this, the public does not want bipartisan if it means: Let's get Wall Street and the five biggest banks in the country to write this bill and then we can all be happy and let's get along and let's have legislation that way.

Then I hear over and over, Senator McConnell, you know, kind of getting a little bit--the leader gets a little upset when he talks about this bill. It is a little bit like when you throw a rock at a pack of dogs, the dog that yelps is the one you hit.

That is kind of what is going on here.

(The remarks of Mr. Brown and Mr. Kaufman pertaining to the introduction of S. 3241 are located in today's Record under ``Statements on Introduced Bills and Joint Resolutions.'')

Mr. President, I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. President, when you look at Wall Street and you look at the relationship between far too many Senators and Wall Street, that is what got us into this mess. For the last 10 years the deregulation of the Bush administration, the people they appointed to watch, such as the head of mine safety in the Bush years was a mining executive, we paid the price for that, the people in my State, people in West Virginia. Too often families pay the price for a government not aggressive enough to regulate mine safety. We paid the price in this country because we didn't have a government aggressive enough to make the banks and Wall Street behave. That is why they were able to overreach.

That is why the legislation Senator Kaufman and I are introducing, with Senators Casey, Whitehouse, Merkley, and others, will address the issue of too big to fail. Too big to fail is not what you do if these banks are in trouble, how you pull them apart when they are about to fail, and we want to make sure we don't spend taxpayer dollars to bail them out. We make sure they don't hurt the whole financial system. Too big to fail means don't let them get too big. Even Alan Greenspan, hardly an ally in regulating the banking system, says too big to fail means too big. That is what Senator Kaufman and I are addressing in our legislation.

Let me give some numbers. Fifteen years ago, the six largest U.S. banks had assets equal to 17 percent, one-seventh. Fifteen years ago, the six largest U.S. banks had assets equal to 17 percent of overall GDP. Today the six largest banks have assets equal to 63 percent of overall GDP. Three of these megabanks have close to $2 trillion of assets on their balance sheets.

When that happens, we are setting ourselves up for one more round of serious problems. That is why homeowners in Youngstown lost their homes. That is why retirees in Sidney, OH lost a lot of their wealth. That is why workers in Newark, OH lost jobs--because we had a banking system that was overreaching, excessive, that became too greedy, and we didn't do enough about it.

Here is what has happened. The Ohio manufacturers I talked to this morning want to grow. They want to hire people. They have orders. They have capacity. They just can't get loans. Three of the largest banks slashed their SBA lending by 86 percent over the last year. SBA loans went from 4,200 in 2007 in Ohio alone to 2,100. At the same time banks have increased their Wall Street trading by 23 percent. Something was wrong in the last 10 years. We paid the price in the last 2 years. But something is still wrong when these banks get bigger and bigger. They trade more and more, and they lend to Main Street less and less.

That is why the legislation Senator Kaufman and I introduced with several other Senators today speaks to this. We need banks to serve this country. Ultimately, it is which side one is on. Are you going to side with Wall Street or Main Street?

Today in the Agriculture Committee we had Republicans and Democrats together passing legislation, strong legislation to regulate derivatives. It is a first, good bipartisan step. Senator Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, joined all of us on the committee to pass a strong bill, not a bill that Wall Street helped to write but a bill that works for American consumers, American small business, American homeowners and workers.

I yield to Senator Kaufman.

I thank Senator Kaufman.

Some people think about this as a pretty big step, to decide we want to limit the size of banks. It is not something we like to do. We don't want to do more regulation than we have to. We don't want to tell successful companies not to grow. But when we look at what has happened in the past, as Senator Kaufman said, we did this right in the 1930s, and it protected our financial system, with a few hiccups but no serious problems until the end of this last decade, when President Bush and the Congress, starting with President Clinton--President Bush accelerated it and weakened regulation--repealed regulation and appointed, you might use the term ``lapdogs''--that might not be a senatorial sounding word.

Exactly. I say to Senator Kaufman, you made a point maybe 5 minutes ago that some of the smartest people in the country are working on Wall Street. There is a huge incentive for smart people to go to Wall Street and be creative and invent new financial instruments to stay, in many ways, a step ahead of the regulators, in some sense, a step ahead of the ``sheriff,'' if you will. Those regulators, who are paid probably one-tenth or one-hundredth-- regulators are paid decent middle-class salaries that most Americans would be very happy with. But some of these very smart people on Wall Street are paid 100 times, 1,000 times--millions, tens of millions of dollars, and there is a huge incentive for them to figure out how to stay ahead of the regulators.

That is why it is so important that we have strong regulators. We always work to do that, and we have good regulators. It is important that a President appoint people who have the public interest in mind, which Presidents have not always done in the last decade. It is important that we write different rules, and that is exactly what we want to do to keep these banks from being so big.

We had problems with rating agencies that gamed the system. We had problems with mortgage brokers. We had problems with Wall Street. We had problems with people creating these new CDOs and other financial instruments, particularly these so-called synthetic ones that had no real basis in any wealth creation for society, only wealth creation for each other. Ultimately, that does not work for Wall Street. It certainly does not work for our country.

So in summary, as to this legislation that five or six of us are introducing today, we will likely offer it as an amendment in the next week or two. We ask our colleagues to support it. If we are going to deal with too big to fail, we surely want to deal with it on the end if there are banks that are about to fail. But we need to, sort of, ahead of time, in anticipation, deal with it by not letting these banks--no matter how good the regulators are--not letting these banks get too big.

If we do what Senator Kaufman said, if we do this right, it will take care of this problem so it does not happen in the next two or three generations, the way people in the 1930s did, or if we do not do it right, we are back at this in 5 or 10 or 15 years.

These capital markets which worked so well for many years are not working for local manufacturers, for small businesses today.

I thank Senator Kaufman.

Mr. President, when you look at Wall Street and you look at the relationship between far too many Senators and Wall Street, that is what got us into this mess. For the last 10 years the deregulation of the Bush administration, the people they appointed to watch, such as the head of mine safety in the Bush years was a mining executive, we paid the price for that, the people in my State, people in West Virginia. Too often families pay the price for a government not aggressive enough to regulate mine safety. We paid the price in this country because we didn't have a government aggressive enough to make the banks and Wall Street behave. That is why they were able to overreach.

That is why the legislation Senator Kaufman and I are introducing, with Senators Casey, Whitehouse, Merkley, and others, will address the issue of too big to fail. Too big to fail is not what you do if these banks are in trouble, how you pull them apart when they are about to fail, and we want to make sure we don't spend taxpayer dollars to bail them out. We make sure they don't hurt the whole financial system. Too big to fail means don't let them get too big. Even Alan Greenspan, hardly an ally in regulating the banking system, says too big to fail means too big. That is what Senator Kaufman and I are addressing in our legislation.

Let me give some numbers. Fifteen years ago, the six largest U.S. banks had assets equal to 17 percent, one-seventh. Fifteen years ago, the six largest U.S. banks had assets equal to 17 percent of overall GDP. Today the six largest banks have assets equal to 63 percent of overall GDP. Three of these megabanks have close to $2 trillion of assets on their balance sheets.

When that happens, we are setting ourselves up for one more round of serious problems. That is why homeowners in Youngstown lost their homes. That is why retirees in Sidney, OH lost a lot of their wealth. That is why workers in Newark, OH lost jobs--because we had a banking system that was overreaching, excessive, that became too greedy, and we didn't do enough about it.

Here is what has happened. The Ohio manufacturers I talked to this morning want to grow. They want to hire people. They have orders. They have capacity. They just can't get loans. Three of the largest banks slashed their SBA lending by 86 percent over the last year. SBA loans went from 4,200 in 2007 in Ohio alone to 2,100. At the same time banks have increased their Wall Street trading by 23 percent. Something was wrong in the last 10 years. We paid the price in the last 2 years. But something is still wrong when these banks get bigger and bigger. They trade more and more, and they lend to Main Street less and less.

That is why the legislation Senator Kaufman and I introduced with several other Senators today speaks to this. We need banks to serve this country. Ultimately, it is which side one is on. Are you going to side with Wall Street or Main Street?

Today in the Agriculture Committee we had Republicans and Democrats together passing legislation, strong legislation to regulate derivatives. It is a first, good bipartisan step. Senator Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, joined all of us on the committee to pass a strong bill, not a bill that Wall Street helped to write but a bill that works for American consumers, American small business, American homeowners and workers.

I yield to Senator Kaufman.

I thank Senator Kaufman.

Some people think about this as a pretty big step, to decide we want to limit the size of banks. It is not something we like to do. We don't want to do more regulation than we have to. We don't want to tell successful companies not to grow. But when we look at what has happened in the past, as Senator Kaufman said, we did this right in the 1930s, and it protected our financial system, with a few hiccups but no serious problems until the end of this last decade, when President Bush and the Congress, starting with President Clinton--President Bush accelerated it and weakened regulation--repealed regulation and appointed, you might use the term ``lapdogs''--that might not be a senatorial sounding word.

Exactly. I say to Senator Kaufman, you made a point maybe 5 minutes ago that some of the smartest people in the country are working on Wall Street. There is a huge incentive for smart people to go to Wall Street and be creative and invent new financial instruments to stay, in many ways, a step ahead of the regulators, in some sense, a step ahead of the ``sheriff,'' if you will. Those regulators, who are paid probably one-tenth or one-hundredth-- regulators are paid decent middle-class salaries that most Americans would be very happy with. But some of these very smart people on Wall Street are paid 100 times, 1,000 times--millions, tens of millions of dollars, and there is a huge incentive for them to figure out how to stay ahead of the regulators.

That is why it is so important that we have strong regulators. We always work to do that, and we have good regulators. It is important that a President appoint people who have the public interest in mind, which Presidents have not always done in the last decade. It is important that we write different rules, and that is exactly what we want to do to keep these banks from being so big.

We had problems with rating agencies that gamed the system. We had problems with mortgage brokers. We had problems with Wall Street. We had problems with people creating these new CDOs and other financial instruments, particularly these so-called synthetic ones that had no real basis in any wealth creation for society, only wealth creation for each other. Ultimately, that does not work for Wall Street. It certainly does not work for our country.

So in summary, as to this legislation that five or six of us are introducing today, we will likely offer it as an amendment in the next week or two. We ask our colleagues to support it. If we are going to deal with too big to fail, we surely want to deal with it on the end if there are banks that are about to fail. But we need to, sort of, ahead of time, in anticipation, deal with it by not letting these banks--no matter how good the regulators are--not letting these banks get too big.

If we do what Senator Kaufman said, if we do this right, it will take care of this problem so it does not happen in the next two or three generations, the way people in the 1930s did, or if we do not do it right, we are back at this in 5 or 10 or 15 years.

These capital markets which worked so well for many years are not working for local manufacturers, for small businesses today.

I thank Senator Kaufman.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the quorum call be rescinded.

Mr. President, for too long the interests of the middle class have gone ignored--simply an afterthought in a financial system that has enabled a few Americans to help themselves, to accumulate immense wealth, while middle-class wages stagnated.

Wherever I go in Ohio, the story is the same: From Toledo to Marietta, from Ashtabula to Middletown, the entrepreneurs and small business owners can't get the credit they need to expand operations and hire workers. College students are worried about signing away their financial future when signing up for college. They are worried a bank's exorbitant interest rate will follow them into their career, through parenthood, and into retirement. Neighborhoods across Ohio--especially in our cities, but it has spread way beyond that--have been shattered because of the housing crisis, caused in large part by Wall Street gambling with the American dream. Cities and towns face massive budget shortfalls, shortchanging vital public services such as education, law enforcement, and transportation.

Today, I brought to Washington--for the third straight year--55 presidents of colleges and universities, 2-year, 4-year, private and public, from Ohio to talk about what we do with public education. All of them face significant budget problems because of what Wall Street has done to our communities, to our colleges and universities, to our cities, towns, and small businesses.

Workers worry about their pensions--whether they spend their later years living off the fruits of their labor or working part-time jobs just to get by. The hallmarks of middle-class life--a stable job, a secure home, a safe community--in too many places in Ohio, in Colorado, and across the country are at risk.

Let's not forget what got us here in the first place. Some might say we don't need to pick winners in our economy, but we don't need to pick losers either. Yet look what we have done on Wall Street and in Washington. Washington's permissive attitude toward Wall Street has thrown our entire economy into turmoil. The financial sector can't be allowed to call the shots, as they have, when it comes to our economy.

Let me cite one quick statistic. In 1980, 35 percent of our Nation's GDP was manufacturing. Less than half that amount, less than one-sixth, was financial services. Today, those numbers have flipped--at least before this recession. Manufacturing accounted for only about 15 percent of our GDP, financial services was almost twice that. But look what that brought us. Look what it brings us in mining towns in Colorado or industrial towns in Ohio, where town after town after town has been hollowed out because of Wall Street, because of Federal policies from the last decade that have chosen financial services over manufacturing, that have chosen Wall Street over Main Street.

Megabanks can't hold such a large stake in our economy that their downfall becomes our economy's downfall. Despite the economic meltdown and bailout, our Nation remains vulnerable to the next economic crisis. Yet what is happening in this institution? People are trying to block us from action. The biggest banks grow bigger--the six largest U.S. banks have total assets equal to 63 percent of our overall GDP. Let me say that again. The six largest banks have total assets equal to 63 percent of our overall GDP. We must take action to ensure that no bank can hold so much of our Nation's wealth that if it fails our Nation either bails it out or our financial system crumbles.

What kind of a Hobson's choice is it for the House and the Senate, the President and the Federal Reserve to make when a bank is so big that if it is about to fail, we have two choices: Either we bail out that bank with taxpayer dollars--as we had to do a couple years ago, at the end of the Bush years--or we allow the financial system to implode and crumble.

But size alone is not the problem. We also have to cut back on Wall Street's risky speculative activity where taxpayer interests are involved. For decades we have had a system that incentivizes reckless behavior without accountability and very little consequence to the bankers who got us into it, all the while taxpayers and the middle class are left footing the bill.

That is why Wall Street reform is so important. It would make big Wall Street banks accountable and impose strict regulations to forbid Wall Street from gambling with our financial security. In the last 10 years, the banks got bigger, the speculation grew more rampant, and the risk from very highly paid Wall Street bankers, managers, and executives became more rampant. When everything fell apart, the middle class and poor people in this country

paid the price. They paid it through lost jobs, they paid it through lost homes, they paid it through more debt, they paid it through losing the American dream.

In the end, if we do Wall Street reform right, if we are able to overcome the opposition to Wall Street reform--the opposition from the Republican leader and those who follow him, which is all about protecting the banks--if we win this debate and outvote the Republican leader and the banks and all who would follow him, it would make Wall Street banks accountable, it would impose strict regulations, and prevent Wall Street from gambling. It would end taxpayer bailouts for good. Financial institutions, not American taxpayers, would then pay for their own mistakes.

If someone starts a small business in O'Leary, OH, and fails, he pays for it. If someone has a job and fails at her job, loses her job, she pays for it. When Wall Street banks fail at their work, they collect, in many cases, millions of dollars and suffer little punishment while the rest of us pay for it.

If we do this right, Wall Street reform will provide the strongest consumer protections for people in Ohio, in Colorado, and in every State in this country--no more of the tricks and the traps in the mortgage market and elsewhere that led to the near collapse of our economy. We need to bring new accountability to Wall Street that protects the pensions of our retirees, the home values of our families, and the jobs of our workers.

Those opposing financial reform--those who oppose Wall Street reform--as they did with health care reform, are protecting special interests. The Presiding Officer, the senior Senator from Colorado, and myself were on the floor many times during the health care debate, and over and over we pointed out how the opponents of the health care reform--similar to the opponents of Wall Street reform--were, in too many cases, simply representing the interest groups that were opposed to this. The Republicans' most important benefactor during health care reform was the insurance companies, and those insurance companies were major supporters of Republicans for decades. Well, we are seeing the same thing with Wall Street. The most important benefactor to Republicans and Wall Street reform are the big banks and the big Wall Street operators. Again, they are doing the bidding of banks and they are doing the bidding of the Wall Street operators.

They make other arguments. They never say: The reason I am opposed to this is because Wall Street and the big banks want me to. No, they come up with something else. There is an old saying from a Mississippi civil rights leader who said: Don't tell me what you believe. Show me what you do, and I will tell you what you believe. Well, watch what my friends on the other side of the aisle are doing; listen to what Republicans are saying. In the end, they know this choice is between Wall Street and Main Street. Behind closed doors they, of course, want to make the decision for Wall Street, but when they come out here, while they are protecting Wall Street, they want to make it sound as though they are protecting Main Street.

Americans are too smart to be fooled. Wall Street lobbyists have enlisted Republicans to kill a bill. They have had meeting after meeting behind closed doors with Wall Street lobbyists, bank lobbyists talking about how to kill this bill. You know that the Republican leader and those who follow him are saying directly to Wall Street lobbyists that if they want their help, then elect more Republicans in the Senate. That would help immensely. Of course it would, because if there are more Republicans in the Senate, there will be more people to block Wall Street reform.

So while cutting backroom deals to prevent reform, they are hoping the American people forget that it was Wall Street greed and excess; that it was deregulation of Wall Street--so they had no real rules to live under over the last 10 years--that put our economy on the brink of collapse. Well, the American people, this time, will not forget. No more meltdowns, no more bailouts.

We need rules that ensure Wall Street investors can't bet the farm in Chillicothe, can't bet the home in Cleveland Heights, can't bet the job in Wilmington on a financial bubble that is bound to burst. We need rules that support the entrepreneurs and small business owners on Main Street across the Nation, not rules that protect Wall Street in New York.

That is what reform will do. It is about protecting small business owners such as Teresa from Powell, OH, in central Ohio, who writes:

My husband and I are small business owners in Ohio. Our

business is successful and we want to grow and hire more

employees. But the banks still aren't lending. We have a new

product we would like to launch, but we need a loan. We have

put everything in the business to make it a success. How is a

business to grow when it cannot get financing even if it has

a proven track record of success?

It is about JoAnn from Cincinnati, who writes:

I am one of those small business owners who can't get money

from the banks. If the situation continues, I and my family

and my employees and their families will be out of luck and

out of an income, and [into] unemployment. The banks are

sitting on cash, cleaning up their balance sheets and killing

us with fees.

Some Republicans claim banks are more important than protecting the American public. It is a false choice. The real choice comes this week and next week when this Wall Street reform comes to the Senate floor. The real choice is: Are you going to side with Wall Street or are you going to side with Main Street? That is the choice. If we in this body follow the Republican leader and side with Wall Street, we will be in another financial collapse sometime in the next decade or so. If we, however, in this body follow the Presiding Officer and me and others who think that Main Street is what represents the real values of this country, then we will see a financial system that will serve the American people and doesn't just serve the interests of Wall Street.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 492, submitted earlier today.

I ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motion to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 493, submitted earlier today.

I ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the Senate proceed to the immediate consideration of S. Res. 494, submitted earlier today.

I ask unanimous consent the resolution be agreed to, the preamble be agreed to, the motions to reconsider be laid on the table, with no intervening action or debate, and any statements be printed in the Record.

Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the Senate completes its business today, it adjourn until 9:30 a.m. Wednesday, April 21; that following the prayer and the pledge, the Journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, and there be a period of morning business for 1 hour with Senators permitted to speak therein for up to 10 minutes each, with the majority controlling the first 30 minutes, and the Republicans controlling the final 30 minutes; that following morning business the Senate proceed to executive session to consider the nomination of Christopher Schroeder to be Assistant Attorney General as provided for under the previous order.

There will be up to 3 hours for debate prior to a vote on confirmation of the Schroeder nomination. Senators should expect that vote to occur around lunchtime.