I believe that the American people should not be subsidizing the unregulated risk-taking of Wall Street firms. Not only have we paid dearly for it in terms of taxpayer-funded bailouts and a crippled economy, consumers are paying for it every day through consolidated, anti-competitive banking.

Given that six of the largest corporate banks today hold assets totaling in excess of 63 percent of the total U.S. gross domestic product, I believe more must be done to restrict the size of the largest financial institutions to ensure that no institution becomes too big to let fail. That is why I have joined as a cosponsor of H.R. 5195, the SAFE Banking Act. The SAFE Banking Act would impose a strict 10 percent cap on any bank-holding-company's share of the United States' total insured deposits. It would also limit the size of non-deposit liabilities at financial institutions to 2 percent of United States GDP for banks and 3 percent of GDP for non-bank institutions.

The gigantic size of megabanks, and the perception that they are too big for the government ever to permit them to fail, gives these banks a competitive advantage over smaller financial institutions that distorts the market and discourages competition. The lack of competition in the banking industry, in turn, leads to ever-higher levels of risk in the system. Ensuring that financial institutions are appropriately sized protects consumers by ensuring that none are truly too big to fail.