Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, we are a day in front of Halloween, and here we are handing out treats to the likes of JPMorgan Chase, Citi, and Bank of America.

You know, it is fitting on this day that we should be doing the people's business. Yet here we are handing out treats and goodies to huge banks so that they can be allowed--large financial institutions that never were held accountable--so that these institutions can be allowed to use cheap, federally supported, guaranteed, bank-backed deposits to invest in derivatives, very similar to what got our economy in this mess in the first place.

Wasn't the Great Recession scary enough? Weren't we in enough trouble? Didn't we learn anything from the ``London Whale'' fiasco?

This bill, the swaps push-out bill, undermines key sections of the Wall Street Reform bill, the so-called Dodd-Frank bill, under section 716.

Now, this bill, which is supposed to protect investors and consumers--in fact, right now, it seems like the ink is barely dry on it, and here they are trying to weaken it already. Congress passed and the President signed this law to ensure that investment banks use their own money, not the people's money, to buy derivatives, invest in hedge funds, or other risky activities.

Why did we make that requirement? Well, it wasn't to punish anyone. It was to safeguard the public trust. We made this change because we wanted to protect Americans from what I would call a zombie market, given the Halloween theme here, from destructive economic rampages like the global financial crisis which lost us 12 million jobs and over $16 trillion in wealth. We are still experiencing anemic economic growth following the Great Recession, and we do not need more trouble like this swaps bill.

Vote ``no.''

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