Christopher Dodd

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, let me first begin by saying if Harry Truman were here tonight, he would be very proud of his successor sitting in that chair in the back of this Chamber. I wish to thank my colleague from Missouri for her passion, her eloquence, and her common sense, something that Harry Truman was noted for. My father actually seconded the nomination of Harry Truman at the convention in Philadelphia in 1948, and I cherish the letter thanking my father for that nomination now hanging on the wall of my home--a wonderful personal letter thanking him for that seconded nomination. He didn't have many people in 1948. My father had not been elected at that time. He couldn't find elected officials to stand up for him in 1948. My father had a great relationship with President Truman and was always proud of it. He had a wonderful, direct--some would call it blunt--relationship with him. Frankly, at moments such as this, I think that is what is needed, because as the Senator from Missouri articulated, this is not a complicated moment. Maybe there are those who don't appreciate how an institution such as this is supposed to operate. It isn't always a pretty process when we engage in debate, with 100 people in this Chamber of different political persuasions, ideologies, and interests. We try to come together as a committee system chosen years ago in order to try and be efficient about our work, so we split up into various groups to consider various matters under certain headings. We sit as Democrats and Republicans, Independents, and try and work our way through a hearing process, listening to experts, gathering informally, talking with one another, reading and educating ourselves, whether it is agriculture or defense or the environment or energy or, in this case, banking, over a period of weeks and months--particularly after a moment in time in our history that nearly brought us to the brink of financial collapse--and then through our collective judgments try and frame to the best of our ability our answers to nagging questions: Why did we get into this mess? What was missing? What did we do wrong? What can we do right? How can we make this better so we don't go through this again, so we don't strangle the system, so we won't lack the creativity and imagination that have been the hallmark of our financial sector and not lose our financial leadership in the world as a nation? How can we harmonize those rules in a global economy today so we don't end up racing to the bottom the various nations who offer the least resistance to some of the practices that brought us to the brink in our own country? That is basically what we have engaged in for the last 38 or 39 months since I have been chairman of this committee beginning in January of 2007. We didn't agree on everything, but we tried to fashion the best we could. I introduced a proposal back in November. My colleagues said that is a good beginning, but we ought to try some different ideas, so between November and this April, I divided up the committee labors. I asked Democrats and Republicans to take on subject matters because it was a highly complex area of the law dealing with derivatives, dealing with systemic risk, dealing with corporate governance, dealing with consumer protection and other matters; thinking that if we broke it up into groups, Democrats and Republicans would become invested and knowledgeable about the subject matter so we could then frame a proposal that would enjoy the kind of bipartisan support needed to advance the cause. Well, I wish to compliment my colleagues. Many of them worked very hard. While we didn't achieve a complete understanding in all of these matters, I think the bill reflects a lot of that labor, to such a degree that the proposal we tried to move to today is so fundamentally different than the bill I introduced in November as a result of that labor. I thank my colleague from Missouri for identifying what occurred a few weeks ago, and that is, of course, the committee markup. Again, my colleagues on the committee made a judgment. They thought that maybe it might be better--there were an awful lot of conflicting amendments, some of which didn't make a lot of sense, quite candidly, from the other side, and I say that respectfully. It was their determination that they would decide to go further in the process without engaging in the amendment process. So here we are. We need to get to this. I have listened very patiently this evening to some wonderful remarks. I wish to begin with Mark Warner, who spoke earlier this afternoon on the bill and has made a remarkable contribution to this body and to the Banking Committee. He spent about 20 years in the financial services area, so he speaks from a base of knowledge and personal experience. Bob Menendez of New Jersey as well was eloquent in his comments. Senator Klobuchar, and Senator Kaufman, who spoke on this before; Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire as well, and Senator Burris of Illinois, and the Presiding Officer, Sheldon Whitehouse, a good friend who has been invaluable in these debates. We worked together on the health care matter for weeks and months over the last year and, again, his thoughts and ideas on this bill as well I am thankful for; Mark Udall of Colorado, Senator Merkley of Oregon, Al Franken and, of course, Senator McCaskill, who I spoke about as well. It is quite a group here, these new Members, their first or second terms in the Senate. I hope my other colleagues and their staffs were listening this evening. It wasn't just eloquence, it was common sense. They are people who have gone home and listened to their constituents. While we all may not agree--and I can't suggest that every amendment they have talked about is one I would necessarily even be supportive of when the debate begins--I firmly believe every Senator has equal status in this Chamber. Whether you are a chairman or a new Member, you are a Senator, and you deserve the courtesies of this institution. You deserve the history of this institution. You deserve to be heard and respected for your ideas and to be given the time to present them, to debate them, and to have an up-or-down vote on your proposals. That is how this institution is supposed to operate. I have been here for three decades, and in all of my three decades here, I have never gone through a period such as we have over the last couple of months where we can't even get to debate some of these critical matters. I am still optimistic. I guess that explains why I have been here for 30 years. I still want to believe this is going to work, that all we have been through is not for naught. As does my colleague from Missouri, I have great respect for my colleagues in this Chamber, Democrats and Republicans, and I have over the years, even with people I have had basic and fundamental disagreements with. I am convinced the majority of us here--an overwhelming majority--want to be associated with passing legislation that we believe will make a significant difference in the economic life of our Nation by at least limiting or prohibiting the kind of activities that led us to the problems and economic difficulties we are in. I hope in the coming days we will have a chance to move to this bill. I hope sooner rather than later. It may be a matter not well known by many, but we only have by my count about 45 or 50 legislative days left in this session. We are working about 3\1/2\ days a week. We are here for about another 14 or 15 weeks, when you exclude the August break, the break for Memorial Day, the Fourth of July and, of course, our departure sometime I presume in early October for the elections. That does not give us a lot of time. Last week we spent the entire week on five nominations that, as I recall--and I may be corrected--passed I believe overwhelmingly when the votes finally occurred. So 5 days on 5 people who were filibustered and delayed. That is all we did last week. That was it: five nominations that were ultimately agreed to--not controversial nominations, just ones where votes were designed to slow the process. I don't think the American people want us to leave our work in this Congress without having addressed this issue. I will end on this particular note. If, for some reason, Lord forbid, a major financial institution were to begin to fail this evening, we are in no better shape than we were in the fall of 2008. There is an implicit guarantee that such an institution would receive the backing of the them and our economy. Despite what I perceive to be overwhelming objections to that kind of a bailout occurring, that is one issue on which there seems to be unanimity. Yet, if tonight a problem began to emerge, we would be in a similar situation as we were 18 months ago. I don't know of a single Member here who would want that to occur. That issue alone ought to cause every one of us to move to get to this debate. That is a principal part of this legislation. There are other features as well, but that alone ought to be motivation to begin this debate, listen to each other's thoughts and ideas, and to conclude that discussion and debate by passing this legislation--or at least an amended version of this legislation. I thank these 12 or 13 colleagues for their patience, their eloquence, their determination, and their conviction. As I get ready to leave this Chamber in the coming months, I will leave with a high degree of confidence that this Chamber will be in good hands. After listening tonight to your words, advice, counsel, and determination, it is with a sense of optimism that we will get this bill done. I am confident of that as I stand before you this evening. With that, I yield the floor.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I thank my colleague from New Hampshire. We are great friends and have worked together on a number of issues over the years together. In a matter of months, both of us will be former Members of this institution. Let me express my gratitude to him for his service over the years and his commitment to these issues. He has focused his attention on the particular matter coming out of the Agriculture Committee, of which we are all very much aware. That proposal was supported by Democrats as well as, as my colleagues know, a Republican on the committee. As my colleague from Arkansas pointed out and as I am sure we have heard already, there was at least an appearance of bipartisanship on this bill. The Senator from New Hampshire raises some very important issues. There are a number of our colleagues who have very strong feelings, different than those of my friend and colleague from New Hampshire, as we know; otherwise, it wouldn't have come out of the committee with the vote it did, and, therefore, the subject of a debate in this Chamber. I should, of course, begin by thanking him as a member of the Banking Committee for his participation involving our product in the Banking Committee. The issue before us in the next few minutes is whether we can have this debate on these issues. Again, as my colleague from Alabama has pointed out on several occasions, we are 80 percent or 90 percent, whatever the number he wants to talk about, there in terms of agreeing to a major part of what our bill proposes. Obviously, we are not all there. You can't ever get ``all there'' in one of these debates, before you have the opportunity to do exactly that, where Members have a chance to be heard, to raise their ideas, a different point of view, and my friend from New Hampshire feels as passionately as do others about their point of view. That is the purpose of having a debate and an institution such as this for that debate to occur. My hope would be, again, that when this motion to proceed occurs, though some may share the views of my friend from New Hampshire or some may have an alternative view, as is certainly the case in major parts of this bill as I have written it along with my committee members--that is the purpose for which this institution exists, to have that debate. No one Member, no one committee, no handful of Members should even suggest that they have the right to write the legislation without the consideration of others. So there is a difference of opinion on these matters. I see my colleague from Vermont.

Mr. DODD. What time is the vote to occur?

Mr. DODD. The Senator from Vermont better take the next 3 minutes.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I note the presence of my colleague and friend from Alabama, the former chairman and now ranking member of the Banking Committee on the Senate floor, and I will be very brief. We have heard the proposal by the majority leader, the objection by the minority leader, and the announcement that there will be a filing of a cloture motion which will mature, I think, on Monday around 5 o'clock or so when a vote will occur. Let me briefly express, first of all, my thanks to Richard Shelby, my colleague from Alabama. For many months--going back more than a year, actually--we have been working together now on this. Over the last 38 or 39 months that I have been privileged to be chairman of the committee, we have sat next to each other. There have been some 42 proposals that have come out of the Banking Committee over the last 38 months, and I think 37 of them are now the law of the land. There have been a wide range of issues, including things such as flood control, but also dealing with port securities, with risk insurance, with housing issues, with credit cards--all sorts of issues that our Banking Committee has wrestled with in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. So before another word is said, before another amendment is filed or another motion made, let me say thank you to Richard Shelby and my other members of the committee for their cooperation and the work we have done together on that committee. Very few votes that have occurred have been negative votes. We had a few of them that happened; that is understandable from time to time. But, by and large, we have worked together. I want our colleagues to know, but also I think most of us want the American public to know, that despite political differences, the fact that we come from different parts of the country doesn't separate our common determination to see to it that we put ourselves on a much more solid footing than, obviously, we were at the time this crisis emerged. We want to never again see our Nation placed in economic peril as it was over the last several years, with as many jobs and homes lost and retirements evaporating, health care disappearing because of job loss. We have been dealing with all of the problems: small businesses collapsing, credit shutting down, capital not available for new starts and new ideas. So we have put together a bill. Granted, it was not a bipartisan vote in committee, but as I am sure my colleague will recognize, much of what is in this bill today is different than the one I offered in November. I am not going to suggest that my friend from Alabama and others loved every dotted I and crossed t, but I believe he will acknowledge that there is a lot of cooperation represented in this bill, trying to come to some common territory so we can say to the American public: Never again will you be asked to spend a nickel of your money to bail out a financial institution. The presumption is failure and bankruptcy. We want to wind you down in a way that doesn't jeopardize other solvent companies and the rest of our economy in the country. We want to make sure consumers get protected, when they have a place to go--when a product they buy fails, there is a place they can go. We recently saw an automobile company where the accelerator jammed and people were put at risk. There was a recall on that product because it placed people at risk. Nothing exists today that allows for a recall of a financial product that puts you at risk. Our bill tries to do that. We try to complete an early-warning system so we can pick up economic problems before they metastasize into major issues. There are other pieces of it as well. We are working to come to a common understanding of how best to achieve those goals and results. My hope is, because of the magnitude of the bill, we can get to a debate and discussion. My experience over 30 years in this Chamber is that we never get to a resolution of issues until we have to. As long as there are sort of discussion groups going on in various rooms of the Capitol and meetings that we have--that is all helpful and can help us understand issues better, but the only way we get to a resolution of conflicting ideas, in the final analysis, is to be on the floor of this Chamber, where Members bring their ideas and we work on them together. We try to accept the good ones or modify them to make them fit into the structure. The bad ideas we try to reject when we can. But you have to be here. Senator Shelby and I, as hard as we work, we know we don't represent 98 other people in this Chamber. Other Members who are not members of our committee or who are members of our committee certainly have every right to be heard on this bill and to express their ideas as to how we can do a better job of achieving what we are trying to achieve. But we need to get there. If we don't even have the chance to start this process, you can't ask the two of us to resolve it for everybody. It is too much. We can try to come close and we can try to reflect the views of our respective caucuses and the American people, but don't expect us to sit there and write a complete bill to deal with an entire meltdown of the financial sector of our Nation. We can help get there. We have good ideas on how to achieve it. But we need this body to function. It cannot function as long as we are debating whether we can even get to the bill. We have spent more than a year on this, and over a month ago we finished our work in the committee. It was voted out of committee. It wasn't a bipartisan vote, but we moved forward. Now we have a chance for this body to act on the product that came out of committee, which will be before us. Where we can get agreement and some changes, we will have a managers' amendment or a substitute or whatever procedural way necessary to try to accommodate those, reflecting the ideas of our colleagues. Others can bring their ideas to the debate. We need to have that. That cannot occur until we are actually here doing it. I urge my colleagues, principally, I say, on the minority side but not exclusively--I think there are those on the majority side as well-- everybody can play hold-up and say: If I don't get my way and if you don't do what I want, then I will object to getting to the bill. If that is the case, who wins on this matter? Certainly not the American people, who expect a little more out of this Chamber than whether each 100 of us insists upon our own agenda. It doesn't work that way, unfortunately. This is not an executive body. We are coequals here, even those in the leadership. We have a right to be heard. My colleague from Arkansas, chairman of the Agriculture Committee-- they marked up a bill dealing with derivatives and other matters, as they should. There is jurisdiction of that matter in their committee. We did the same. We have some jurisdiction over the subject matter. We need to harmonize the rulemaking on that subject matter. I hope that on Monday afternoon, Senator Shelby and I will continue working with each other, as will our staffs today, tomorrow, and over the weekend, to try to come to some understanding on some of these matters. I am not going to tell you to count on the two of us to solve all of our problems. We cannot. I ask everybody, let's get to the debate. The American people cannot tolerate us doing nothing, waiting around to see if another crisis comes and whether we can respond to it. That is unacceptable. About 5 on Monday, we need to have the votes to go forward. The two of us will sit in our respective chairs and present our ideas and talk and discuss how these ideas can emerge, and we will invite our colleagues to come to the floor to debate, discuss, and offer their ideas, and we will try to make this an even better bill. We think we have a good one, but we also know that anybody who suggests to you that they have written the perfect piece of legislation, be wary of them. I have never seen a perfect bill in 30 years--maybe a Mother's Day resolution or something, but aside from that, don't count on perfection to be offered here. It is anything but perfect. I hope we get to that moment. We have had our discussions over the last week, and I will continue talking about the substance of our bill. We cannot turn into a petulant organization here that screams at each other. We need to get about the business the American people sent us here to achieve. With the relationship I have had with my friend from Alabama, I remain optimistic we will get the job done. Legislative processes are not the most beautiful things to watch. It is what our Founders designed, what those who have come before us have been able to use to achieve some of the great successes of our Nation on many different matters. We are now confronted with another great challenge as to whether we can step up and resolve the kinds of issues that would avoid the kind of catastrophe we almost witnessed in our Nation. That is our job. We are chosen by the citizens in our States to represent not only their interests but our fellow countrymen's interests as well. I look forward to the vote on Monday. I hope we may not have to have it, that we can proceed to the bill and let Senator Shelby and I and the committee members and others do the work and shape a good bill.

Mr. DODD

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

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I wish to take a few minutes this afternoon, if I may, to discuss further the efforts in financial regulatory reform. I would be remiss if I did not note the contribution of the Presiding Officer to this effort. I thank him personally once again. He is a member of the Banking Committee and has expressed strong interest in this legislation and various parts of it, and I thank him for it. Today I wish to talk about aspects of the bill. I have been talking about this bill on the floor over the last several days, issues such as too big to fail, which we aggressively address in our legislation. I talked about the efforts that have been made to try to forge a comprehensive bill, a strong bill. We have involved, we have invited virtually everyone interested to participate in the product. I am proud to say many did offer their ideas and thoughts as we tried to develop a proposal that was not only strong and broad based but attracted, again, a strong group of our colleagues, both Democrats and Republicans, to this effort. Over the days, we have spent a lot of time discussing the impact of Wall Street reform on large financial firms, big banks, investment banks, nonbanks, corporate executives, Federal regulators, and other power players in the financial sector--that has been the subject of a great deal of attention--and the complicated subject matters of derivatives--how they work, how they apply--shadow economies, black pools, systemic risk--all this language and discussion that sometimes can leave the average citizen feeling as though we are talking in a foreign language about these matters. The question they ask is: How does this affect me? I am glad you are going to try to clean this up, but what is happening with all of this that has some positive impact on my life as a taxpayer, as a working American? I would like to know what is being done to see to it that my interests are going to be considered as you are trying to resolve all of these larger questions that somehow seem very distant to my concerns every day. Today I wish to take a few minutes to talk about the impact of this legislation on millions and millions of our fellow citizens who are not financial wizards--and would be the first to tell you so--they are not big wigs on Wall Street, major players in large banks and financial institutions. They are people just trying to build a nest egg for their families, invest in their futures, maybe take a loan out to buy an automobile, a home, send a child to college because that child has done everything they have asked them to do over the years and now wants to go on to that educational opportunity and needs the resources to do so. The stories are myriad. There are many. The demands are obviously clear. Unfortunately, as we know and many Americans found out the hard way over the last few years, our current financial system leaves consumers too often vulnerable to being deceived into purchasing risky products, if not outright ripped off by greedy Wall Street firms and others. After all, at the heart of the financial crisis that has cost our Nation so dearly were the subprime mortgages sold by unscrupulous lenders to Americans who did not understand their terms and who never, ever could have afforded them, and the lenders knew it. They knew going into it. Yet they lured them into those arrangements, with great damage done to individuals and to the economy as a whole. Wall Street's unquenchable thirst for profits and utter disregard for ordinary consumers led to a pattern of greed and recklessness that darn near led to creating a complete collapse of our financial markets and our economy. Millions of Americans lost their jobs, around 8.5 million. Seven million homes have gone into foreclosure, many lost forever. Retirement earnings, as I have said over and over, evaporated in some cases almost instantaneously as a result of the collapse of our economy. Maybe more important than all of that--as hard as it is if you lost your home, your job, your health care--is they lost their faith and sense of optimism and confidence in our financial system in this country, that loss of confidence, that loss of optimism, that loss of belief that while you may make a bad bet on a stock, the system was sound and fair. It would treat you fairly, and you were not going to get hurt because we had a good system in place. That confidence, that faith has been lost. That may be more important than everything else I have mentioned in terms of the future strength of our economy and our country. To add insult to injury, those same Americans then saw those same firms collecting billion-dollar bailouts at the expense of the taxpayer--and paying million-dollar bonuses to the same executives whose bad decisions put us in the mess in the first place and who would have been out of a job had the bailout not occurred. The bailout allowed those financial institutions to survive and their expression of gratitude was to write themselves a huge bonus check and being able to do so only because in this Chamber we voted 75 to 24 to stabilize our financial system--a decision I believe was the right one. I think we made the right call in doing it, as difficult as it was. But at the end of all that, major executives in these companies then rewarded themselves as the head of these institutions because we-- mostly the taxpayers, by the way--came up with the resources to make it possible for those institutions to survive. So the American people are angry and with good reason. But they are also wondering: Who is looking out for us? Whose job is it to make sure this doesn't happen again? While our current system pays lip service to consumer protection, those responsibilities are divided among some seven different regulators for whom consumer protection is just an afterthought, in too many cases, to their primary safety and soundness missions that they are responsible for as well. The result is, regulators put the interests of banks and large financial institutions, in too many cases, before the interests of the consumers who rely on those institutions for their long-term economic security. If this sounds like a recipe for failure, that is because it is. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Michael Barr testified before our Banking Committee not long ago, and he said: Today's consumer protection regime just experienced massive failure. It could not stem a plague of abusive and unaffordable mortgages and exploitative credit cards despite clear warning signs. It cost millions of responsible consumers their homes, their savings, and their dignity. And it contributed to the near collapse of our financial system. We did not have just a financial crisis, we had a consumer crisis. That massive failure could happen again. Today, we are in no different position than we were in 2007, 2008, and 2009. Nothing has changed. Yet we are on the brink of creating change that could make a difference in this very area. So today those massive failures are still lurking out there, and the same consumers who lost their homes, lost their jobs, lost their retirement, lost their health care are in no different position should another crisis happen tonight or tomorrow. It is exactly the same system, exactly the same structure, exactly the same so-called regulators out there charged with protecting consumers from the kinds of problems that led us to the difficulties we are in today. Again, the financial products and practices being devised on Wall Street, even as we speak, will make it even more difficult in many ways. Are they safe? Are they exploitative? We have no idea, and neither do the American people because no one is looking out for them at this juncture. Our legislation answers the question of who is looking out for ordinary Americans when they interact with our financial systems. The bill we will present to our colleagues in just a matter of hours in this Chamber creates an independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a watchdog with bark and with bite. This new bureau will not have any job more important than helping American consumers make smart financial decisions--because protecting, educating, and empowering American consumers will be their only job. This bureau will have an independent Director, appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate. It will have a dedicated and independent budget paid by the Federal Reserve Board. It will be empowered to write consumer protection rules governing any institution, whether it is a bank or a payday lender that offers consumer financial services or products. It will have a new Office of Financial Literacy to ensure that consumers are able to understand the products and services they are being offered and a national toll-free consumer complaint line so, for the first time, Americans have somewhere to go when they need to report a problem. When I talk to people back in my home State, they understand it is their responsibility to make smart decisions about their family finances, and nothing in our bill suggests otherwise. That is the first line of defense, so we all bear responsibility to learn more, to pay attention, and to understand the financial arrangements we are getting into. I am not saying anything different. Unlike Wall Street, they are not looking to shirk that responsibility. They welcome that responsibility, but they would like to understand it better. What they need is clear, accurate information so they can make those good decisions and a cop on the beat to stop abusive practices when they occur. That is what our legislation, which will soon be before this body, does. Our legislation finally puts consumers in control of their financial lives by requiring large financial institutions and credit card companies to tell them what they are selling in plain English so the purchaser doesn't need a master's in business administration to understand. It will finally put an end to the practices that have become almost standard operating procedure--skyrocketing credit card interest rates, the explosion of overdraft fees, predatory lending by mortgage firms, and more. This Congress has taken steps to address these abusive practices, passing the Credit CARD Act, which was authored by the members of our committee--again, I thank the Presiding Officer for having been a part of that--and forcing large banks to change their overdraft fee policies. But credit card companies continue to look for ways around the new rules, and history shows them to be pretty good at getting away with it as well. Between 1997 and 2007--in that decade--credit card companies engaged a wide variety of, frankly, unethical practices--from so-called double- cycle billing and universal default to retroactive and arbitrary interest rate hikes. In that entire decade--a decade in which literally millions of our fellow citizens were overcharged or outright ripped off by these banks--there were just nine formal enforcement actions taken by the seven regulators in our national government. Let me repeat that. In that entire decade--when nearly every single citizen in this country could talk about one horror story after another, where rates were increased, fees were enlarged, and every gimmick and trick was used to squeeze every last nickel out of a consumer's pocketbook--there were only nine formal enforcement actions taken by the regulators at the national level. There are stories similar to the one I heard from Mario Livieri of Branford, CT. Mario is a 75-year-old retired homebuilder who accidentally overdrew his account by $2. I am not making this up. Mario is 75 years old and a small business contractor. He overdrew his account by $2 and was charged $35. The bank took several days to notify him that the account was overdrawn. In the meantime, of course, additional minor purchases yielded three additional $35 fees, for a total of $140, which Mario Livieri was charged because he was $2 overdrawn in his banking account. Unfortunately, that story by this individual in my State can be repeated millions of times all across the country. A $2 mistake made by a conscientious individual, and one that he was unaware of until notified later, and every subsequent purchase he made brought an additional $35 fee until he had a bill--before he discovered the mistake--of $140 because of being $2 overdrawn. That used to go on all the time, and in too many cases it still does. When Mario protested, the bank waived one of the four $35 charges, but they told him there was nothing he could do to fight the fees because the practice was perfectly legal. Then there are the auto dealers that have been shown to take advantage of military servicemembers, the shady payday lenders that prey on minority communities, and a wide range of malicious actors who look to take advantage of American consumers. This bill that will be before this body, which passed out of our committee, puts an end to those abuses, and that is why it is supported by the Military Coalition, civil rights groups, consumer rights groups, and more. It is also why it is opposed by large financial institutions whose business strategies are based too often on taking advantage of their very own customers. Let me take a moment to put an end to some of the malarkey we have been hearing from the Wall Street crowd. The large banks are paying for ads now claiming that this legislation will impose new restrictions on dentists and butchers and other Main Street merchants. That is not true. You and I know this. But that kind of falsehood that goes out across the country is exactly the kind of propaganda they are determined to engage in to undermine this legislation. These rules we have crafted apply only to firms engaged in offering consumer financial services or products, not the butcher, not the laundromat, and not the dentist. An entity must be engaged in financial services or products. Just because your butcher lets you keep a tab or your dentist offers a payment plan doesn't mean these new rules apply. Moreover, this legislation doesn't seek to strangle innovation in the financial sector. Quite the opposite. That innovation is part of what keeps America prosperous. We are not dictating what products can be offered any more than the Consumer Product Safety Commission directs what toymakers can invent. But just as the Consumer Product Safety Commission watches out for toys that could hurt children, the independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will watch out for products that will hurt someone's finances so customers and consumers can make smart decisions. The large financial institutions have tried to push this notion that this legislation creates an enormous burden on small community banks. Let me address that. How nice of them to look out for their competitors, the ones they have been trying to drum out of business for decades. But the fact is, the small community banks with $10 billion or less in assets will not see any regulatory changes. They will not be charged any fees or assessments. They will follow the same rules they follow today. Even better, these small community banks will be able to operate on a level playing field without the unfair competition from the underregulated or unregulated shadow banks that don't operate with any rules whatsoever. So this legislation has many important objectives, from ending taxpayer bailouts to establishing an early warning system so future financial crises can be nipped in the bud before they threaten our entire economic system. But for millions of Americans who don't pay much attention to what goes on, on Wall Street, except when they have to write a check to bail out the firms that live there, perhaps nothing in this bill will impact their lives more directly than the new independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Finally, there will be a cop on the beat watching out for them. The safety and soundness of our financial institutions are critically important. I am not arguing against that at all. But that is not the only consideration. As this real estate bubble was building up, we were told over and over that the system was safe and sound. Why? Because people were making money. It was growing in profits. What we failed to look at and understand was it may have been safe and sound from that narrow perspective, but for the consumers who were relying on these financial institutions for their economic security, it was anything but safe and sound. With the establishment of this bureau, for the first time in the history of our country, we are saying that financial products ought to be no different than any other product consumers buy. There ought to be a place where someone can go when they have been deceived or defrauded in the use of these financial products. If your lawnmower breaks or your car malfunctions, we get all sorts of reports, as recently seen with recalls of products because they are unsafe for a consumer to use. Why shouldn't that also exist if someone is out there purchasing a financial product that could put them in great danger--in fact, bankrupt them and ruin their life because they have been deceived and drawn into a financial arrangement because it was a quick profit-making operation for the lender, but it put the consumer at great risk--and ultimately causes, as we have seen in millions of cases, the ultimate financial ruin of individuals, families, and businesses. Thus, we have established a parity between physical products you may buy and financial products you may engage in. Finally, Americans will be able to rely on clear and accurate information about their family finances. They will know that someone will be looking out for them. There is no better way to restore faith against the loss of homes, the loss of jobs, the loss of retirement-- all of which have occurred--and perhaps the greatest tragedy of all being the loss of faith in our financial system. We need to restore that. The absence of that will not make this get better. Every single other thing we do will not achieve its goal if Americans don't have confidence in our financial systems--the faith that it is there, it is safe; that they can be secure in the knowledge that when they deposit a hard-earned paycheck, when they buy an insurance policy, when they buy a stock, when they engage in financial activity, the structure, the system there is not unfair. It is not out there to deceive them, to defraud them, to take advantage of them, but to see to it they are protected. That is our goal in this bill. My hope is that my colleagues will allow us to get to this debate. If you have objections or ideas, let's have that full-throated debate that has been the history of this Chamber on important matters that have come before us in the past. We ought not be denied that opportunity again on this bill. But I wanted to take a moment to talk about the consumer protection efforts on this legislation, and I again compliment my colleague in the chair, the Presiding Officer, because he has been a champion in our short service together on this committee on the very issues I have addressed today, and I thank him for his commitment and passion for these issues. I yield the floor, and I see my colleague and friend from Arizona, so I will not note the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Madam President, I want to spend a few minutes, if I may this afternoon, to talk about an issue that has been the subject of much debate over the last number of days, and that is the financial reform bill that will be coming to the floor of this body in a matter of days--an issue that is going to confront us, as the circumstances presently exist, with Members having to make a choice. My hope is that before that occurs, we can reach some understanding that will allow us to have a strong bill that ends too big to fail, that protects consumers, and that builds the kind of architecture for financial services that will allow us to avoid the pitfalls that caused our economy to reach almost near collapse over the last several years. The choice is going to come down to this: There are people who can vote to open this debate on financial reform legislation that will hold Wall Street firms--large financial institutions--accountable and prevent future economic crises such as the one from which we are just beginning to emerge or basically defeat this; to somehow walk out of this Chamber and leave us basically where we have been, and that is highly vulnerable--individuals, families, businesses, and the overall economy of our country once again exposed to the kind of vulnerabilities that brought so much hardship to our country. They can, of course, block--as they are apt to do in some cases--any consideration of this bill and leave us in a place--a broken place-- where the status quo would again create the kind of problems I have described. So one has to ask themselves a question: Who benefits if this bill to rein in Wall Street and large financial institutions is strangled by a filibuster, where it ends up that we can't even get to debate the bill? Who benefits from that? Well, certainly no one can make a case the American family would benefit. These families have seen millions of jobs lost and trillions in savings wiped out because a greedy few on Wall Street gambled with money that didn't even belong to them, causing the hardship we have seen in our Nation. Certainly, America's small businesses do not benefit. These are the ones that have seen the flow of credit and capital literally dry up. How many of us in this Chamber, back in our respective States, have talked to owners of small businesses who cannot get a dime's worth of credit over the past several years in order to hire new people and survive during this economic crisis? I hear anecdote after anecdote after anecdote of businesses desperately trying to find credit in order to stay alive and survive. Yet because of the unchecked risk taking by financial firms that caused this economic crisis, credit is virtually gone. So American businesses--small businesses particularly--certainly are not benefitted if we are confronted again with the status quo and a perpetuation of the present set of rules. Certainly, Madam President, the American community banks do not benefit at all. These are the ones who have found it difficult or even impossible to compete on a playing field tilted so heavily toward the largest firms and, frankly, financial firms that are unregulated. One of the things our community banks and others--and I am not suggesting they love every dotted i and crossed t in the bill--are seeking is some consolidation of regulation. They want to see their competitors, who are not subjected to any regulation, be subjected too so they will also have to face the same set of rules. The bill I have written, along with my Banking Committee colleagues, does just that. We consolidate the regulation so there is not the overlapping jurisdictions that exist, and their major competitors--the nonbank financial institutions--are going to be subjected to the same rules they are. That creates that level playing field our smaller banks need in order for them to compete effectively. Certainly the American taxpayers are not going to benefit with the status quo. These are the people who were forced to bail out Wall Street in 2008. If this bill is blocked, they might be asked to do it again. Now, I am not in the prediction business, but if some future Congress goes back to the American public, as we did in the fall of 2008, and asks them to write a check again for $700 billion because we failed to get this legislation through that would end too big to fail--the implicit guarantee that the Federal Government will bail you out if you are so large or so interconnected that you can't possibly fail--the American people, in my view, would reject overwhelmingly a request to ask them to write another check for that purpose. Our bill, for the first time, writes into legislation an absolute prohibition that the American taxpayer would ever or should ever again be asked to do what they did in the fall of 2008. But here is who would benefit if this bill is blocked: the same large financial firms that got us into the mess in the first place. They believe--and I presume they are right--that they can bolster their bottom lines if the status quo prevails; that they can continue to take outrageous risks, using other people's money, knowing that any profit is theirs to keep and any loss will be made up by the American taxpayer. That is why we are faced with this prediction that 41 of our fellow colleagues will vote against us going to this bill on what they call the motion to proceed to the bill. The letter from the minority leader says: We have 41 votes to stop you from even debating this bill. Well, you explain to the American taxpayer--to small business, to the American family, and to others out there who are paying an awful price because of the mess of these very institutions that are today leading the charge against us getting to a bill--why the status quo is in their interest and their benefit. Madam President, those who vote to block this bill are sending a clear message to American families, businesses, community bankers, and taxpayers, and that message will be: I am sorry, but we are not on your side. We are choosing another side of this equation. Last month, my good friend, the minority leader, and the Republican Senator responsible for campaign fundraising participated in a meeting in New York with Wall Street executives. That happens all the time. Certainly, there is the right to sit down and talk with people, to represent labor and business, and we should do that. But nobody knows what was talked about at that meeting. Yet when our friend and colleague who chairs the campaign committee came back, right afterwards, all of a sudden we get this rhetoric about too big to fail; that we can't possibly go to this bill. Now, I was born at night, Madam President, but not last night. I was born at night, but not last night. And don't tell me that miraculously these things happened and all of a sudden we find ourselves with 41 colleagues, many of whom I suspect are not overly enthusiastic about this game plan that says: Don't ask why; don't tell us what is in the bill. Just tell us we are going to line up and say no matter what anyone says or does or what they have tried to do, we are going to object to even going to this bill. I firmly believe there is more than a small minority of my Republican colleagues who, frankly, find that argument objectionable. That is not to suggest they like this bill or agree with every position in it, but I know them well enough to know they are sick and tired of being told how they are going to have to vote on a procedural motion on a matter that I think deserves at least the support of our colleagues to begin that important debate. What we do know, of course, about the opposition to going forward is that the Republican leadership returned armed with some very false talking points, talking points written by a political strategist with close ties to large financial institutions, talking points that have been debunked by the independent media analysis and even Republicans such as FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair. Let me point out the memo that suggested this game plan was written by a political strategist was written long before even one word was written on the bill. They were told how to fight a bill that didn't even exist out here by accusing the bill of leaving open the too big to fail, even though they knew--at least those who had read the bill-- those provisions had been written so tight that no one could possibly argue too big to fail would be allowed again. The Republican leadership returned promising that every member of their caucus would vote to kill this bill before the debate even began. I know for a fact that Members of this body, on both sides of the aisle, want to pass a good bill. My colleagues know me well, and they know my reputation over the years. I have never, ever passed a major piece of legislation in this body, in over three decades, when I have not had the cooperation and backing of a Member or Members on the other side of the aisle--never once on every major piece of legislation with which I have been involved. Here we are, at the brink of going forward with the single largest proposal to reform the financial services sector of our country, and we are divided here like a couple of petulant teenagers, instead of sitting around and coming together as I have offered for months, getting behind a bill and allowing us to go forward. It is long overdue that we grow up and recognize this is not some athletic contest, this is about whether our economy can get back on its feet, whether we can grow and prosper and create jobs, have credit flow and capital form so that businesses and wealth can be created. Nothing less than that is at stake in this debate and discussion, and all the more reason why we need to go forward, and go forward like adults, like Members of the greatest deliberative body--as we are told over and over--in the history of mankind, the Senate, to resolve these matters. I have worked for hours with my colleague from Alabama, as he well knows, Senator Shelby, to the point that he has said--and I appreciate it very much and I compliment him for it--we are 80 percent of the way to a bipartisan consensus. In fact, I suspect if Richard Shelby were asked today whether that number were 80 percent, he would have even a higher number. Imagine being 80 to 90 percent in agreement, yet being told by the minority we cannot go forward. Do I have to write the whole bill? Is that when we can go forward? You have 80 or 90 percent of what you think is a good bill, but, no, no, we are going to stop any further debate. In all my years I have never heard of such an argument, whether I have been in the minority or majority, that I agree with 80 or 90 percent of what you have written, Senator, but I am sorry, we are going to stop even considering any further debate on the floor of the Senate. I worked for many hours with the Senator from Tennessee, Bob Corker, to try to get to 100 percent, as he well knows. No matter what was said in the meetings between the Republican leadership and Wall Street executives, the fact is that the bill I will be bringing to the floor reflects not only bipartisan input but good common sense as well. If you look at what the bill actually does, it is clear that there is no ideology here, just one principle: Hold Wall Street and large financial institutions accountable so that American families and businesses can grow and thrive without fear of another economic catastrophe. The bill creates an early warning system so that for the very first time in our Nation's history, someone will be in charge of monitoring our entire financial system, to look out for emerging products and practices and problems, not just here at home but even globally. Again, I don't think you have to have a Ph.D. in economics to know what we have seen in the headlines and heard on our news shows a few weeks ago, that there were major economic problems in the small nation of Greece, and that all of a sudden the financial system of every other nation around the world was at risk. Or when that small exchange in Shanghai, China, began to decline by 12 percent a few years ago, every other exchange around the globe within hours was adversely affected. That market, that exchange, represented less than 5 percent of the volume of the New York Stock Exchange. Yet because it declined by 12 percent one morning, every other exchange around the world reacted. What more do I need to say about whether our issues here are global in scope, not just domestic? Again, it is even further reason why we need to be able to pull together and create this bill that is essential so we have a warning system in place that looks out for and monitors products, practices, and even problems that can emerge in other parts of the world if they can pose the kind of risk that could bring our financial system to near collapse. Under the status quo, of course, no regulator can see beyond the narrow silo of their own radar screen. We changed that. This now involves all of these prudential risk regulators sitting at a systemic risk council headed up by the Federal Reserve and Treasury here, so they can actually look over the horizon and act as a financial radar system. What is going on out there? Are there problems emerging in products or companies or nations that could bring our country to near disaster financially? If we had had that in place back a few years ago, I would argue we might not find ourselves where we are today. So this is one of our provisions in the bill. What a pity it would be to lose the opportunity to create that kind of an early warning system. That is how the subprime lending sector was able to grow so large despite the dangers it posed to the economy and why no one was able to stop it before it precipitated a crisis. I do not believe members of the minority caucus want regulators to be unaware of emerging threats to our financial system. The bill brings new transparency and accountability as well to financial dealings by ensuring that even the most complicated or obscure transactions are concluded in an open marketplace. The Presiding Officer, of course, is well versed and talented, coming from the Empire State, and understands these issues. I believe that derivatives, for instance, are a very important instrument, critically important to economic growth and prosperity. They have become a pejorative, unfortunately, but my view has been let the markets work. How do the markets work best? Markets work best when there is transparency, when buyers and sellers, investors, have an opportunity to see with clarity what these instruments are, what they are designed to do. Right now we have a shadow economy where some of these instruments operate in darkness, and that is one of the problems that created the financial mess we are in. Our bill opens up, sheds light, brings sunshine to these instruments so that taxpayers but, more importantly, investors and others can honestly understand what they are, what they are intended to do and how they work. For the first time here we would force risky financial companies such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers that have operated the shadow banking system to be subject to proper supervision, again, so we have the ability to understand what they are doing. Of course, under the status quo these dangerous giants that have been free to take enormous gambles in a single-minded quest for maximum profit and when they go down like the Hindenberg, taxpayers are left to clean up the rubble. I do not believe that members of the minority caucus want to leave the Lehman Brothers unsupervised until its collapse shakes the very foundations of our economy. This bill I have before us beefs up the SEC oversight, it strengthens protections for investors, and gives shareholders a greater voice on how executives are compensated and how big their bonuses can get. Under the status quo, of course, the same executives whose mismanagement caused the collapse of financial giants get to collect ridiculous bonuses again. Kill the bill and there is nothing in here that would preclude the same kind of abuses, the outrageous gouging, if you will, at taxpayer expense by a handful of these executives who fail to understand--or if they understand, more outrageously were willing to reward themselves for their own failures because the American taxpayers shored up their financial institution. The Allen Stanfords and Bernie Madoffs of the world are able to rip off investors for millions while the understaffed and underfunded SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, fails to stop them. I do not believe members of the Republican caucus want to leave these executives free to line their pockets with unearned billions or leave investors vulnerable to Wall Street predators and con artists. That is what happened. That is what went on. Our bill stops it. We need to be able to go forward with this bill. Our bill requires full disclosures in plain English so that Americans can easily understand the risks and returns of any financial product, whether it is a mortgage or a student loan. Our bill creates an independent consumer protection agency, a watchdog with bark and bite, to protect consumers from the abusive practices that have become almost standard operating procedures--skyrocketing credit card interest rates, the explosion in checking account fees, predatory lending by mortgage firms, and so much more. You do not have to educate the American people. You will hear it over and over from your own constituents. Listen to what they have been through with these increased interest rates, increased fees--every gimmick you can think of to pick the pocket of the American taxpayer who, today, necessarily needs to depend on credit cards in order to make ends meet in their families. Of course, under the status quo, consumers trying to make smart decisions about their family finances are confronted with a sea of fine print and technical jargon and they are vulnerable to the predatory lenders, the greedy predators who have taken advantage of them. Our bill stops that. Our bill puts an end to that. If we do not get a chance to debate this and go forward, that would be the end of it. What a disgrace it would be to be confronted, as we were at the outset of this Congress, with the problems the American taxpayers have been through--8\1/2\ million jobs lost, 7 million homes in foreclosure, retirement accounts evaporated, small businesses failing, and we did nothing to stop it, despite the fact that 80 or 90 percent of what I have written in this bill is agreed to by many in the minority. But you will not even allow the bill to go forward to be debated. For the life of me I do not understand that logic. In short, this bill protects the American consumers, American businesses, community banks, as I mentioned, and taxpayers from the very exact situation that occurred in 2008, an economic crisis brought about by Wall Street highjinks, large financial institutions and regulatory failures. Our bill creates a stronger foundation, I might add, on which we can rebuild the prosperity we have lost in our Nation over the last number of years. I do not believe members of the Republican minority, our friends and colleagues here, want to kill this bill. I do not want to believe that. Unlike other matters we have debated over this Congress, this matter ought to be one where we can come together as I have tried to do, day in and day out, week in and week out, month in and month out, to craft a piece of legislation that reflected the myriad views embraced by the Members of this Senate. We are on the brink of going forward and I will go forward with this bill. We can do it one of several different ways. We can go forward. I will bring this bill up. The leader, I am told, will offer a motion to proceed. My hope is we will not have to have a vote on that, that there will be enough common sense here that would say this is a good product even for those who do not like various provisions of it, and then do what we are supposed to do in this body--debate, offer amendments, try to improve the bill based on your own view of what constitutes an improvement. But let's act like the Senate on a major bill of this import here, instead of putting on the brakes, don't show up, don't say anything, just vote no, we are not going to debate this until you do exactly as I want you to do. That is not the Senate that I think the American people expect to see work. My hope is, of course, that I will be right in that. My colleagues, many of whom I have worked closely with on many issues, do not want to be part of a blind, pointless effort here, just to walk away from this process. I believe they, our friends on the other side, are caught between the same commonsense principles that led many of them to spend so many hours helping us create this legislation, and the political deals that have led their leadership to demand they help to kill it. As I said a moment ago, I have been in this body for some 30 years. I have served with many Republican colleagues for a long time. I have great friends, as my colleagues know, on the other side of this aisle, people who I believe care as much about this country as any other Member, and they want to be part of answers, solutions. They did not come here, they did not fight hard to get here, to say no. They came here because they wanted to be part of the answers to how we can get our country moving again. Again, I am charged as the chairman of a committee to try to pull together a bill that reflects the disparate points of view, that listens to our colleagues here in crafting a piece of legislation that can work. I have tried to do that now for many months. I have come to the point where, frankly, we need to go forward in this body. I am confident, again, if our colleagues would give us a chance we can achieve the results they seek and I am hopeful they will when the motion to proceed occurs, and then engage in the kind of thoughtful, intelligent debate this Senate has a reputation of achieving and accomplishing. I thank my colleagues for the work they have contributed to it so far. Let's not take all of that work and dash it on the rocks of procedural filibustering. We can do better than that. I am confident we will. I urge my colleagues to be supportive of these efforts. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Madam President, I rise with a heavy heart today to mark the passing of Marine LCpl Tyler Griffin. Lance Corporal Griffin was just 19 years old when he died serving our country in Afghanistan. He was born and raised in Voluntown, a small, close-knit community of just 2,600 in eastern Connecticut that today is struggling with the loss of one of its finest young citizens. He graduated from Griswold High School, where he played on the football team, and attended the Voluntown Baptist Church. Athletic and intelligent, he could have devoted himself to any career, but chose to serve his country with great pride. Neighbors recall him as a community fixture who always had time for younger kids. One says that they always knew when Tyler was home on leave, because a Marine Corps flag would fly proudly at his house. His friends and neighbors remember him not only for the example he provided through his selfless service, but also for his kind manner and friendly demeanor. He was the product of a community that took great pride in their courageous marine. Bill Martin lives next door to Lance Corporal Griffin's mother and stepfather. He told the New London Day that he would often see Lance Corporal Griffin running around the neighborhood, getting in shape for basic training. ``We'd see him out there on Route 49,'' Martin said. ``He'd always wave.'' In short, Lance Corporal Griffin was everything you would raise your son to be. I join his family, his neighbors in Voluntown, and all Americans in deep appreciation for his service and mourning for his loss.

Mr. DODD

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, what is the business before the Senate?

Mr. DODD. I ask unanimous consent to speak as in morning business.

Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I come to the floor now, and I came to the floor yesterday, in response to the campaign by those both outside and, apparently, inside this Chamber who are literally trying to kill the Wall Street reform legislation, and to tie that reform to that bill to bailouts. I pointed out in those discussions yesterday that these arguments are straight out of Wall Street's playbook, written by political strategist Frank Luntz. As we all know, I submitted his political strategy that he offered months or weeks before even consideration of the bill, outlining politically how to defeat this legislation. So even before there was a bill, Mr. Luntz had a strategy on how to kill it. You merely have to look at the date of his memo to know what I am talking about. Yesterday we heard a strategy, basically written by him, to avoid any accountability for the mess they have made of our economy. And if it seems strange to you, Mr. President, and others, that the minority leader is choosing to attack our bill for being too kind to Wall Street by reciting talking points written on behalf of Wall Street, well, you are not alone, obviously, if that seems strange. Even stranger, of course, was the leader's insistence that this legislation is too partisan. Perhaps he has not spoken to my colleague and friend from Alabama, the former chairman of the Banking Committee, Senator Shelby, with whom I have spent months working on building consensus, who said himself months ago that we had achieved a consensus on as much as 70 percent of the bill that will be presented to this body in a matter of days. Perhaps the minority leader had not spoken to any of the Republicans on the Banking Committee, who joined with Democrats in bipartisan working groups that I asked to be formed back months ago, each of which of those groups achieved real and meaningful progress that is reflected in the bill that will be on the floor in a matter of days; not just amendments that will be offered, it is in the text of the bill of those working groups, Democrats and Republicans on the Banking Committee. Perhaps the Republican leader had forgotten that as far back as February of 2009, I insisted that meetings with the Treasury Department, as they were still crafting their plan for reforming Wall Street, include Republican staff so Republican ideas would be in the proposal from the very beginning. Well, this morning the McClatchy newspapers looked into the minority leader's accusations made in this Chamber yesterday morning, and frankly found them lacking. Please indulge me for a moment. I am reading from this morning's newspaper. Let me quote, if I can: McConnell accused Dodd of drafting partisan legislation, even though the banking committee Chairman has worked roughly half a year with key Senate Republicans and incorporated many of their ideas into his bill. McConnell also said the bill contains controversial bailouts, but it doesn't. And this from today's Associated Press report: McConnell on Tuesday said his views on the financial regulation package had been most influenced by the comments of community bankers in Kentucky, his home state. Yet such bankers are represented by the industry groups that most favor setting up an advanced prefinanced liquidation fund for large institutions--the Independent Community Bankers Association. The very community banks that insisted upon the $50 billion that the banks have to put up if they are going to be unwound, rather than taxpayers. So the very banks that my friend from Kentucky claims are advising him on his views have a different view than he does about the bill that is before us. The newspaper article goes on. It says: . . . McConnell has also complained that the Democratic bill is partisan and the White House intervened to stop Democratic-Republican negotiations . . . But Sen. Christopher Dodd, Connecticut, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, negotiated for months with leading Republicans and found much common ground, only to see the vote in his committee unfold along party lines. Well, there you have it. Black and white. The attacks on the Wall Street reform bill are false. This legislation incorporates Republican ideas, Democratic ideas, and it definitely includes one idea that we all agree on: ending taxpayer bailouts. Just ask Sheila Bair, who is the Chairperson of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the organization that comes in and puts an end to failing banks. Ms. Bair is also a Republican, former legal adviser to Senator Bob Dole, former majority leader, minority leader of the Senate, an appointee of the previous administration, the Bush administration. Sheila Bair told the American Banker, in an article published this morning: The status quo is bailouts. That is what we have now. If you do not do anything you are going to keep having bailouts. And nothing is what we will have if Members vote against allowing this bill even to come up for debate on the floor of the Senate. Sheila Baer goes on to say about this bill: It makes bailouts-- This bill that we will have before this body-- It makes bailouts impossible. And it should. We worked really hard to squeeze bailout language out of this bill. The construct is that you cannot bail out an individual institution. You just cannot do it.

Mr. DODD. I will be happy to yield to the Senator.

Mr. DODD. Let me thank my dear friend and colleague from California. She says it so much more directly and clearly than my efforts here to explain this. She is absolutely correct. This is the irony of ironies. In fact, let me go further. The $50 billion provision in this bill was proposed by the Republicans. I did not come up with this idea. This was the idea that was brought up by the community bankers and Republicans who said that if there is an unwinding of a failed institution, the American taxpayer should not have to pay a nickel for that; it should be paid for by the institutions that put themselves in that position. That is what we did. In fact, in the other body, they have a stronger provision with even more dollars involved. The irony of ironies, that a Republican provision in this bill, designed to insulate the American taxpayers from having to pay a nickel to unwind a failed institution, they are now calling somehow evidence that this is a bailout. The only reason that money can be used is to bail out, rather to unwind that institution, if it gets in that situation.

Mr. DODD. Absolutely.

Mr. DODD. Correct.

Mr. DODD. I thank my colleague. I note, you only have to ask yourself--look, you do not have to have a Ph.D. in banking. Ask yourself this question: The idea of requiring these institutions to put up money in advance, so that if they fail they end up paying for the cost of unwinding----

Mr. DODD. Who would object to that? Who is objecting to this? I mentioned earlier, it was not my idea. This was brought to me by the Republicans. Sounds to me like the people who have to put up that money are probably the ones objecting to it. These are the large institutions that do not want to be assessed any cost associated with their mismanagement of an operation.

Mr. DODD. So it is pretty much as plain as the nose on your face. I am even surprised we have to make the case. So I thank my colleague from California. I will try to complete these remarks. I know others have other matters they want to be heard. I thank Sheila Bair from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Many of us know her, having worked with the Republican leadership for years as legal counsel, of course; being an appointee of the Bush administration. She talked about our bill today, saying this bill has been written specifically to end any notion of any kind of a bailout by the American taxpayer. It makes [bailouts] impossible, and it should. We worked really hard to squeeze bailout language out of this bill. And she is right, working together. The construct is you can't bail out an individual institution--you just can't do it. Our bill stops bailouts by imposing tough new requirements on Wall Street firms. Being too big and too interconnected will cost these firms dearly. And, should that not be enough, under our legislation regulators can use new powers to break up those firms before they can take down the economy. It stops bailouts by forcing firms to write their own funeral plans and to pay for their own liquidation in advance so taxpayers do not have to pay a dime. They shouldn't. If that is not enough, our bill stops bailouts by literally eliminating any possibility for the government to bail out these firms. These Wall Street firms believe that no matter how much we hate bailouts, if they are important enough, at the end of the day taxpayers will come riding in on a white horse to save them, just as they did under the Bush administration. This bill kills the white horse. There is no white horse under this bill. When we pass it, as I hope we will, large institutions, big banks will know if they fail, they fail. Their management gets fired under our bill. Their assets will be liquidated under our bill. Their creditors lose money under our bill, and taxpayers don't pay for any of it under our bill. The bill stops bailouts. To insist otherwise indicates that either the minority leader doesn't know what is in the bill or he chose to distort what is in the bill. Yet I read this morning in the Wall Street Journal that the Republican leadership is ``struggling to maintain a unified opposition,'' even going so far as to circulate a letter pledging that each Republican Senator will vote to filibuster this bill and keep it from even being discussed. I hope that is not the case. I can't tell my colleagues, in my 30 years here, what a denial that is of everything I have stood for and worked for in countless pieces of legislation for three decades, to have Members of this body, who have spent hours with me crafting the bill I will offer, including their ideas, to then vote against even allowing this bill to be debated. I just know that cannot happen. I don't want to believe that 41 of my colleagues, many of whom have worked with me on this bill, are going to sign on to a commitment that they will not allow this bill even to be debated unless I agree to their provisions. I have never seen anything like that in my 30 years. I have worked tirelessly for months to put together a bill that reflects various ideas. I know it doesn't satisfy everyone. I have been criticized by the left and the right on this bill. I understand that. But I have tried to put together a bill that reflected what I thought was commonsense, sound, good legislation. I pray the news I am hearing about 41 Senators--before most of these people have even read what is in the bill--signing on to a political commitment without understanding what is at stake is not true. By losing this bill and having the status quo remain, bailouts then are in place. Taxpayers are exposed. The 8 million jobs that have been lost, the 7 million homes, others who have suffered as a result of this economic crisis get little or no relief. That is a stunning conclusion of the efforts that have gone on. It isn't about us. It is about the people out there who deserve far better than they are getting. Still, even after it has become apparent that the Republican strategy is to delay and obstruct, even after it has become clear that the minority has very little to offer in this debate except for some false talking points read verbatim from the big banks' script, the minority leader took the floor again this morning and said: Republicans believe the solution is for bipartisan talks to continue. They will. As frustrated as I am, my door has never been shut. The door is still open to sit and resolve and work together to get to this bill. But I will not sit around days on end in the rope-a-dope game of never knowing who I am talking with, whether they have any ability to bring people to the table, ``just agree with my idea and I am still against the bill.'' I have to ask myself, why did I go through this process over the last 4 or 5 months, agreeing to much of what they were offering, and there is not a single political vote to show for it; in fact, a vote against even debating the bill in the end? Why would one ever go through what I did to end up at this particular point? Apparently, someone finally informed the minority leader that those talks had been going on for over a year. So they will continue. But then again, he once again made the false statement that the bill would ``allow taxpayer dollars to bail out Wall Street banks.'' There they go again, the same old talking point, the mantra repeated. If one says it often enough, I guess it becomes true in some people's minds. I say to my friend, the minority leader, if he wants to continue the debate, he could start by ceasing efforts to filibuster this bill before it gets to the floor; before, I would suggest, no more than probably two or three people have even seen it or have any idea how many titles are in it, what it includes, and what we try to achieve. If you want to debate, if you have ideas, then bring them to the floor. That is why this body exists. If the debate is going to consist of Democrats offering ideas to tackle these very complex--and it is a complex set of issues--and critical challenges on behalf of American families and businesses and Republicans reading false talking points from Wall Street's playbook, then count me out. I will not engage in that kind of a debate or negotiation. I have no interest in that whatsoever. We have a job to do. If my friends on the other side of the aisle don't feel like doing the work, maybe they should think about the millions of unemployed Americans who didn't go to work this morning because they lost a job in this economy, created by the mismanagement, the failure to step up and take steps to correct these problems over the last number of years. Those Americans would love nothing more than to put in an honest day's work for a good day's pay. But they can't because the same banks sponsoring this parade of bamboozlement on one side of the aisle cost our country 8.4 million jobs, 7 million homes, lost health care, and destroyed futures and retirement accounts. That is all gone. What about them in this debate? Are their issues, their views, their concerns going to be discussed? No, just shut it down. Don't even debate the issue because ``you can't agree with my idea.'' That is not why this institution exists. It is not about the process. It is not about committee assignments. It is not about your idea or mine. It is about people beyond the walls of this Chamber who are counting on us to get a job done for them. Our failure to step up and even debate these issues and consider each other's ideas is a tragedy. I know my friends on the other side of the aisle are faced with a difficult choice between supporting their party leadership and participating in this complicated, difficult debate. I am not naive. I know that is a hard place to be. But if we can't act like U.S. Senators for the sake of this issue, for the sake of legislation whose success or failure has such an enormous impact on the very survival of the middle class and the economy as we know it, then why are we even here? Why are we even engaged in this, if that is what the choice is? It is easy to understand why the big banks don't like this bill. It is far harder for me to understand why any of us would be sympathetic to those arguments. We don't work for the big banks. We work for the American people who sent us here from our respective States. We work for families who have paid a steep price for Wall Street's risky behavior. We work for the American public that lost those jobs, those more than 8 million jobs, and still faces near double-digit unemployment. We work for an American public that lost nearly 7 million homes to foreclosure, for millions of people who have seen their small businesses fail or their retirement accounts evaporate in a matter of hours. We work for an American public that is sick and tired of feeling like no one is looking out for their interests, like the political hacks and lobbyists hold all the cards in these discussions. The minority seems intent on proving them right--I hope that is wrong, but I am worried they may be right--on proving that there is no issue more important than saying no, stopping all discussion, currying favor with special interests, and trying to gain petty political advantage, strangling this bill with a filibuster or suffocating it with false claims that stick our Nation and its taxpayers with bailouts forever; that will continue this era of greed and recklessness on Wall Street; that will leave us vulnerable once again to another economic crisis. I have been here a long time. I know this institution is better than that. I know there are friends of mine on the other side who care about this bill, who want to be a part of the debate, who want to be part of the solution and have ideas to bring to the table and recognize no one group, no one Senator is going to write this bill exclusively. But I can't get there if the attitude is: We won't even let you debate or discuss it. That attitude is not what the American people expect of the Members of this body. On their behalf, who desperately need us to act, I hope we are better than that; that in the coming days before this bill reaches the floor, we can find that common ground. If not, we need to go forward. But we need to have that debate on the floor of the Senate. I yield the floor and suggest the absence of a quorum.

Mr. DODD. Will my colleague yield?

Mr. DODD. That was the intention. But there were 401 amendments filed by 2 p.m. on Friday, before the announced markup of the bill. Over the weekend, staff came to work on amendments. I say respectfully, no one from the minority side came in on the weekend. But over the weekend, it was suggested to me by the minority-- --

Mr. DODD. No, but that they wouldn't offer any amendments. It turned out to be a 21-minute markup. I was prepared to stay there all week, as my colleagues know, and announced in advance that would be the case. So for the purposes of understanding here, again, that was their decision. I hope we could get to some agreement farther down the road. We agreed to a lot. The bill that was on the table that day for the markup was substantially different than the bill I offered as a discussion draft in November.

Mr. DODD. So it reflected a lot of ideas and thoughts that have been incorporated between that date and the actual markup date. I say that.

Mr. DODD. My colleague wanted a colloquy here, and I am glad to be an audience for him. But if he wants a colloquy I will stay around.

Mr. DODD. Let me say, again, I came here--if I have been strong it is because I am responding to the minority leader. The minority leader has come every morning now saying this bill perpetuates bailouts. I am not going to sit here idly and allow those accusations to be spread across the country when you and I both know that is not true--when I am told this is a partisan bill. I have spent too much time here over too many years doing exactly what I have done in the 38 months I have been chairman of this committee; that is, to develop wherever I can bipartisan solutions to this bill. It has motivated me in everything I have done. So to all of a sudden, out of the blue, knowing all the efforts I have made, along with others, to try and find that common ground--as my colleague from Tennessee well knows here--and then to be faced with a minority leader who should know better than coming to the floor making these silly accusations, false accusations about a process that has been anything but partisan, about conclusions in a bill that are anything but accurate in terms, in fact, of what is included in the legislation. I am willing to listen to ideas on how we can make this tighter, if, in fact, that is the case, to stop the bailouts that are occurring in the country, all of that. But then having a letter being circulated, where 41 people, most of whom have no idea what is in this bill but just taking a political position because they are being asked to do so, without at least having some appreciation for those of us, including yourself, who have worked so hard on this to produce as good a bill as we can--understanding there are still ideas that many of our colleagues want to bring to this debate, and they should have a right to do that-- that having a full-throated debate on the floor of the Senate--I am disturbed. What does that say to future chairs? Why would you even bother doing what I went through if, in fact, at the end of it all the answer is: No, I am sorry, we did not get our way, so we are going to stop the debate? I find that terribly distressing. As a Member of this body, leaving it in a few months--I will not be here any longer next year for the debates--I have to say to the younger Members, the newer Members coming along: Be careful. If this is the template on how we operate, then all of the things I tried to do over the last year on this bill-- from the hearings, involving everyone, going through the discussions, recognizing you did not solve every issue--then you have to ask yourself the question: Why would you do that if at the end of the process you get a letter circulated stopping a motion to proceed on a bill of this import after all the effort? If this had been a purely partisan--you know, you are not allowed in the room. We are just going to keep you outside. We just want to write it--then I get that. You would be right, in my view. I would sign the letter, in fact, if that were the case. This is not that case, in my view. I say that respectfully to my colleague.