Senator Carper Votes for Comprehensive Financial Regulatory Reform Legislation

WASHINGTON, DC – Today Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) joined a majority of his Senate colleagues in voting for the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010 (S.3217). By a vote of 59 to 39, the Senate approved the comprehensive financial regulatory reform legislation.  The Senate will now work to resolve the differences between this legislation and companion legislation passed last year by the House of Representatives before considering a final version of the legislation later this year. 

"This bill will help ensure that Main Street will no longer be on the hook for mistakes made on Wall Street," said Sen. Carper.  "The lack of market discipline, federal regulators asleep at the switch, and financial actors who took irresponsible risks because they didn’t have any "skin in the game" created the 2008 financial crisis and threatened to plunge our country into a second Great Depression.  Eighteen months later, the financial system has been stabilized, our economy is on the road to recovery, and the private sector is beginning to rehire American workers.   But no one wants to repeat those mistakes again. 

"This financial reform bill takes crucial steps to modernize our financial sector and improve regulatory oversight so we can better protect consumers.   A new council will identify risks to our financial system before they spiral out of control, and a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau will make sure that regulators do their job and speculators don’t profit from worthless deals.   This bill also gives businesses certainty so that they can plan for the future and start hiring more workers. 

"Is this bill perfect?  No.   But we made it better during the four-week debate in the Senate, and my hope is that we will make it even better as we work out our differences with a House-passed reform bill.   We are close to delivering on the most comprehensive set of financial reforms since the 1930s, reforms that I believe will provide for economic growth and security."