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Crist Says Proposed Banking Bill Is Bad for Seniors, Small Business, Consumers

Crist video

By ANNE LINDBERG, TB Reporter

U.S. Rep Charlie Crist spoke out against the Financial CHOICE Act, urging members of the House Financial Services Committee to reject it.

WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Rep. Charlie Crist, D-St. Petersburg, spoke out against the Financial CHOICE Act on Tuesday (May 2), saying the legislation would gut reforms put into effect after the banking crisis of 2007-08.

Calling it the “Wrong CHOICE Act,” Crist said it’s “bad for seniors, bad for small businesses – especially women-owned and minority-owned small businesses, and bad for consumers.”

The Financial CHOICE Act would repeal major parts of the Dodd-Frank Act that was passed in 2010 in an effort to prevent another banking crisis. The CHOICE Act, sponsored by U.S. Rep. Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, would repeal sections of Dodd-Frank and make major changes in the way federal regulators oversee the largest banks and financial firms. According to a report from the Hill, the “federal government would no longer have the power, nor pool of money collected from bank fees, to dismantle failing banks and firms that could trigger an economic crisis upon collapse. Instead, the bill creates a new bankruptcy chapter that seeks to insulate financial markets from a failing bank’s fallout.”

The proposal is being debated before the House Financial Services Committee and is expected to be passed later today (May 3) where it would be heard by the full House of Representatives.

Crist not only spoke against the bill in an appearance before the Financial Services Committee, he also spoke on a video played on his Facebook page that urged constituents to oppose the bill. Crist urged the use of #consumersfirst and #wrongchoiceact.

Here is the full text of Crist’s statement to the Financial Services Committee:

“Wall Street Reform became law among the embers of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. I was governor of the great state of Florida at the time.

“I would ask my colleagues, have you forgotten the desperate calls from your constituents? From your neighbors? From your family members? The foreclosure factories – do you remember them?

“Middle class one day, on the street the next. My constituents have not forgotten.

“I’d like to share the story of Lehigh Acres, Florida, a community outside of Fort Myers. It was under construction when the financial crisis took hold. The streets were mostly paved, the parcels were mostly subdivided, the construction began, and then the capital stopped – frozen in place by the very banks that taxpayers bailed out to the tune of $700 billion. Lehigh Acres, Florida, still bears the physical scars of the crisis.

“But beyond the physical scars of forgotten neighborhoods, the financial scars still persist. Seniors, who did everything right, forced back into the workforce as their retirement accounts plummeted. $17 trillion dollars of wealth robbed from the American people. And the emotional scars persist today as the crisis created an entire generation of once middle class children who now know homelessness.

“I ask my friends, why would we return to the policies that led us to that nightmare? Why would we go back to the foreclosures, homeless children, and retirees picking up working class jobs?

“Today, we could be working on nonpartisan improvements to Dodd-Frank, making it work better for Main Street. But instead, we have the Wrong CHOICE Act.  Bad for seniors, bad for small businesses – especially women-owned and minority-owned small businesses, and bad for consumers.

“We should defeat this bill.”

Crist represents Florida’s 13th Congressional District, which includes south and mid-Pinellas County.

To watch a video of Crist’s appearance before the House Financial Services Committee, go to youtube.com.

To see Crist’s Facebook video, go to Facebook.com.

Photo taken from Facebook video.

Charlie Crist | Financial CHOICE Act | #wrongchoiceact | #consumersfirst | Tampa Bay News | TB Reporter

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