Feel Free To Share This Page Slashdot Del.icio.us Google Digg Reddit Newsvine Furl Yahoo Facebook

Washington - , Dec 11, 2009 - Today, Congressman Adam Smith (WA-09) released the following statement in regard to his vote in favor of the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act:  

“In order to protect hard working Americans and our overall economy, we must ensure that the financial firms that engaged in the risky and unsafe practices that led to last year’s financial crisis are not permitted to return to business as usual. Today we have taken a significant step toward achieving this goal.

“The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act lays out a comprehensive set of reforms that will modernize America’s financial regulations and hold financial firms accountable. For example, this legislation puts in place tough new rules that will prevent financial institutions from becoming “too big to fail,” and stops risky and irresponsible behavior before it threatens to bring down the entire economy.  It will also place new regulations on derivatives and other complex financial instruments that can inflict serious damage to our overall economy.

“This legislation also creates a new agency to protect consumers and ensure they are not being targeted or taken advantage of by risky or unfair financial products and lending practices. For far too long, Americans have not been adequately protected against predatory lending abuses and industry gimmicks.  Additionally, there has been little authority to ensure products across various financial sectors won’t drive our economic system into a crisis.  Today, by passing these commonsense regulation reforms, this has come to an end.”