Dodd/Frank 5-Year Anniversary
Floor Speech
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Ms. SEWELL of Alabama. Mr. Speaker, today, I rise in recognition of the five-year anniversary of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. This critically important piece of legislation has strengthened oversight of the financial sector, given regulators the tools to end the era of ``too big to fail,'' and has eliminated loopholes that allowed risky and abusive practices to go unnoticed and unregulated.
As we mark this five-year anniversary, we must recognize that the ``Great Recession'' of 2008 did not occur naturally as a part of the regular financial cycle, but as a result of the lack of transparency and accountability in the financial sector.
During the ``Great Recession'' the American economy lost over 4 million jobs, 13 trillion dollars in household wealth and approximately 5 million homeowners lost their homes to foreclosure.
Consequently, Dodd-Frank implemented reforms to prevent the bad actors from continuing to commit the types of deceptive and harmful practices that led to these catastrophic results. Most notably, Dodd-Frank created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which over the past five years has returned over $10.1 billion dollars to over 17 million consumers that were subjected to unfair treatment.
No legislation is perfect, and there is still room for minor tweaks to be made in order to ensure Dodd-Frank achieves its original goal of increased transparency, market efficiency and consumer protection. However, we must continue to defend against Republican attacks to completely dismantle this critically important legislation. The sad reality is that Republican majority has spent countless hours attempting to weaken the financial regulatory system, and to reverse many of the important reforms made by Dodd-Frank.
We must continue to protect our recovering economy, promote stability in our financial markets, and ensure that regulators have the tools to protect the American people.
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