Today, U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter (CO-07), a member of the House Financial Services Committee, released the following statement about the national financial crisis:
"After the stock market crash of 1929, safeguards and restraints were established to limit some of the upside gain in the markets to reduce some of the downside pain. For 70 years the restraints generally succeeded, and the financial markets operated with a fair degree of confidence even through a number of economic cycles.
However, the current administration either cutback, opposed, ignored, or choked off the restraints on the markets, especially those of Wall Street, while borrowing billions of dollars from China and Saudi Arabia to finance tax cuts for the wealthiest of Americans while prosecuting the War in Iraq. Now, bailouts, takeovers and bankruptcies of unbelievable proportions demonstrate the party is over, and Bush’s Treasury Sec., Henry Paulson, is asking Congress for hundreds of billions of dollars within the week to restore confidence in the financial markets.
I will listen to Sec. Paulson on Wednesday when he testifies before my committee. But, I have doubts about the foxes guarding the henhouse or giving the Bush Administration anymore authority over anything. I am committed to a responsible plan that will restore some restraint in the financial markets, tighten up out of control compensation for executives, rebuild the country’s infrastructure, create a new energy economy, protect taxpayers and reduce foreign borrowing."
