FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
DATE: March 30, 2011

CONTACT: John Carey at 202-466-1854
john@ourfinancialsecurity.org

AFR Statement on House Financial Services subcommittee hearing

Washington, DC – Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition of more than 250 national and state organizations working together for strong financial reform, issued the following statement today:

With more than 13.5 million Americans still out of work, the high cost of failing to establish fair and reasonable rules of the road for the financial sector is devastatingly clear. After all, it was the reckless “heads we win, tails you lose” conduct by the big Wall Street banks that cost Americans more than 8 million jobs, hundreds of billions in taxpayer funded bailouts, more than $8 trillion lost in home values and retirement savings, and millions of foreclosures. The 2008 financial crisis is also responsible for about $400 billion of our current government deficit.

Any serious ‘cost benefit analysis’ of Wall Street reform would look at these numbers and conclude that we cannot afford NOT to demand more transparency and more accountability from Wall Street. The ‘benefits’ of weakening or rolling back recently adopted reforms go to big Wall Street banks who were on the receiving end of a taxpayer bailout, and thanks to that bailout, are now back to paying record high bonuses. But we all pay the costs of reckless and thoughtless deregulation at the behest of special interests.

The American public overwhelmingly supports Wall Street reform. They do not want to see special interests undercut the increased transparency and accountability for big Wall Street banks we desperately need.