FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  
Monday, April 26, 2010

CONTACT: Cullen Schwarz
Office: (202) 225-5802

REP. PETERS AND LOCAL RESIDENTS MEET ON MAIN STREET TO DEMAND REFORM FOR WALL STREET

Peters and Small Business Owners, People Whose Savings Have Been Impacted, Unemployed Residents Met as Bill Comes to Floor Later Today

Royal Oak, MI – U.S. Representative Gary Peters and local residents gathered on Main Street in Royal Oak today to call for strong reforms on Wall Street as the Senate prepares to vote on whether to proceed with debate on Wall Street reform legislation.  Representative Peters discussed what Wall Street reform will do, why it is important and what it will mean for Michigan families and small businesses.  He also called on the Senate to include a provision he wrote that was incorporated into the House-passed version of Wall Street reform that would force large Wall Street banks to pay back every penny of the Wall Street bailout initiated in 2008, shortly before he came to Congress.

Local small business owners, seniors, jobless workers and other residents discussed how the financial crisis Wall Street created has impacted local people by drying up lending for small businesses, increasing unemployment levels, reducing home values, decimating retirement accounts and other investments, and of course, costing taxpayers hundreds of billions in bailouts.  

“Wall Street greed and the meltdown it created hurt our small businesses, decimated retirement accounts and home values and then the banks got a taxpayer bailout.  Strong Wall Street reform will protect our economy and ensure taxpayers will never bail out Wall Street ever again,” said Rep. Peters.  “I authored an amendment to also require the banks to pay back every penny of the original bailout.  If the banks are now earning huge profits and paying out excessive bonuses, they can afford to pay back taxpayers.” 

“The Wall Street meltdown affected us all here in Michigan,” said Karen Teegarden, owner of Karen Teegarden and Associates in Birmingham.  “Small businesses like mine for example can't get loans they need to innovate and grow and that hurts our economy terribly.  I’ve actually had to lay people off because I couldn’t get a line of credit to temporarily cover payroll, something that was pretty accessible in the past.  We need Wall Street reform to get the big financiers investing in Main Street businesses again so we can create jobs.”

“My retirement account took a big hit during the meltdown,” said Kirk Lobring, a retiree of Royal Oak.  “The titans on Wall Street need to understand that in the virtual casino they're running out there they are playing with our money.  There must be protections in place to prevent our savings and our home values from being impacted like this ever again.”

Wall Street reform legislation will curb reckless Wall Street investment practices and protect the economy from future crises, help get Wall Street investing in business development and job creation again, and protect consumers seeking mortgages and other loans from being ripped off.  It will also stop taxpayer bailouts once and for all: if any so-called “too big to fail” institution is about to fall in a way that would cause another economic crisis, that firm would be slowly shut down using a fund paid for by the financial sector themselves.

The Senate is scheduled to vote around 5 p.m. on whether to begin debate on Wall Street reform legislation.  If sixty senators vote to proceed, debate will begin and continue throughout the week.  If not, negotiations among Democrats and Republicans will resume.  Bipartisan negotiations have been ongoing in the Senate for several months.

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