WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Bob Corker, R-Tenn., a member of the Senate Banking Committee, said today that he has agreed to work with Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D-Conn., to see if a bipartisan approach to a financial regulatory reform bill in the Senate is possible.
“Yesterday, I agreed to work with Chairman Dodd to see if it is possible to craft the right regulatory reform bill that can receive bipartisan support,” said Corker. “I called both Republican Leader Mitch McConnell and Banking Committee Ranking Member Richard Shelby about my decision. I greatly respect both men, and I appreciate the cordial conversations I had with them yesterday. I hope to make it clear that I am stepping forward purely as one Republican senator who believes this is a piece of legislation that needs to be passed and is willing to see if it is possible to do it in a bipartisan way.
“I think foremost on most Americans minds are jobs and financial security, and the longer there is uncertainty in the financial community about what comes next, the longer it will take to remove one of the impediments to restarting growth in our economy. The private sector needs to be our engine for job creation, not the government, and our capital markets from Wall Street to Main Street should not have to calculate Washington rhetoric into their business decisions. I also believe the American people should have peace of mind that the federal government is not going to use taxpayer monies to bail out a company in the future. We must create a resolution regime that ends the idea of ‘too big to fail’ and says instead that when an entity fails, it fails.
“Consumer protection is probably THE hot button issue, and Senator Dodd and I have agreed to set that topic aside for now. I believe our goal should be trying to figure out a way to enhance consumer protection without negatively impacting the safety and soundness of our financial system. I am a businessman at heart and feel strongly about placing limits on the federal government’s intrusion into the market place. As we continue to work through this legislation, I will remain committed to those principles.”
Corker and Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., have spent the past few months working specifically on the resolution authority and systemic risk aspects of reform, and they have held over a dozen briefings on financial issues for all senators (banking committee and non-banking members) over the past year. Speakers have included: Bill Black, Steve Eisman, Alan Greenspan, Bob Steel, Martin Baily, Gene Ludwig, Alic Rivlin, Rog Cohen, Sheila Bair, Ben Bernanke, William Dudley, Matthew Slaughter, Peter Wallison, Morris Goldstein, Robert Litan, and Bill Isaac.
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