President says Republicans would repeal Wall Street and Consumer Reforms
Less than two weeks before the 2010 elections President Obama warned that, if elected to power, Republicans would repeal certain laws focused on consumer protection and Wall Street Reform. Once again, the President used his weekly address to argue that we can't afford to take a step backward:
"Recently, one of the Republican leaders in the Senate said that, if Republicans take charge of Congress, repeal would be one of the first orders of business. And he joins the top Republican in the House, who actually called for the law to be repealed even before it passed.
I think that would be a terrible mistake. Our economy depends on a financial system in which everyone competes on a level playing field and everyone is held to the same rules - whether you're a big bank, a small business owner, or a family looking to buy a house or open a credit card. And as we saw, without sound oversight and common sense protections for consumers, the whole economy is put in jeopardy. That doesn't serve Main Street, that doesn't serve Wall Street; that doesn't serve anyone.
And that's why I think it's so important that we not take this country backward - that we don't go back to the broken system we had before. We've got to keep moving forward."
As for the threat to repeal Wall Street Reform, the President may have been referring to a PBS NewsHour interview done by Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) in late September of this year. Here is a video of that interview (question on repeal at around the 7 minute mark):
You can read the accompanying article at PBS' The Rundown here.
DNC Chairman Tim Kaine responded to Senator Cornyn shortly thereafter.
via PRNewswire-USNewswire:
"Yesterday, in an interview with the PBS News Hour, Senator John Cornyn, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, declared his party's intent to "pretty quickly" undertake efforts to repeal Wall Street reform and health insurance reform if they win control of Congress. In response, DNC Chairman Tim Kaine issued the following statement:
'Senator Cornyn is not the first Republican to call for the repeal of Wall Street reform and health insurance reform, but I grow more concerned for our country's future every time I hear another Republican leader pledging to do away with critical legislation that guarantees, among other things, that American taxpayers will never again be left to bail big banks out of a mess that the banks created.
There is a rapidly growing rank of Republicans who show themselves to be hopelessly out of touch with middle-class Americans' concerns – for their families, their finances, and their future.'" (SOURCE Democratic National Committee)
You can read the rest of that statement here.
President Obama's Weekly Address:
0 comments:
Post a Comment