Carper Applauds Final Passage of Comprehensive Financial Regulatory Reform

WASHINGTON, DC – Today Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) joined a majority of his Senate colleagues in voting for the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. By a vote of 60 to 39, the Senate approved the comprehensive financial regulatory reform legislation. The bill now goes to the President’s desk for his signature.

The legislation creates a new consumer financial protection bureau, ends taxpayer bailouts for so-called too big to fail institutions, sets up an early warning system to prevent future financial crisis, brings transparency and accountability to risky financial transactions, and provides businesses certainty so that they can plan for the future and start hiring more workers. 

"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. 

"This is important progress in our ongoing effort to strengthen our financial system and our broader economy.  Over the course of the debate in the House, the Senate, and the final Conference Committee, this legislation has been greatly improved and will go a long way towards ensuring that Main Street will never again be on the hook for mistakes made on Wall Street."