Maryland PIRG Condemns Backdoor, Backroom Appropriations Proposal To Gut Wall Street Reform

“Rider” Written By Citibank Would Allow Risky Swaps To Be Bailed Out

Maryland PIRG

Statement of Consumer Program Director Ed Mierzwinski Opposing Omnibus Appropriations “Rider” To Repeal the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Reform and Consumer Protection Act’s Section 716, “Prohibition Against Federal Government Bailouts of Swaps Entities.”

“We join others, including Americans for Financial Reform and the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (joint statement) and Public Citizen, in condemning this backdoor, backroom budgetary effort to repeal the Wall Street reform law’s protections for taxpayers and Main Street from the riskiest derivatives swaps that led directly to the 2008 financial collapse, a taxpayer bailout for banks and a recession for everyone else. Wall Street should not be allowed to return to betting and gambling using insured deposits and other taxpayer subsidies and guarantees. Don’t some in Congress remember that five years ago, Wall Street’s unregulated casino economy ended badly when millions lost homes, millions lost jobs and millions more lost trillions in retirement savings? In 2009, Senator Richard Durbin (IL) famously said that the banks “frankly own the place.” If this budget rider, which the New York Times reports was largely written by Citibank, is allowed, they still do.”