WASHINGTON, D.C. – Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley released the following statement marking the seventh anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the bailout of AIG this week in 2008:
“This week’s anniversary of the Lehman Brothers and AIG crash is a timely reminder that unraveling Wall Street reform is a recipe that ends in disaster. In 2008, millions of American families lost their homes, their jobs, and their life savings because of other people’s risky and complex gambling on Wall Street. We can’t go back to a coin toss economy in which heads, Wall Street wins; tails, the American people lose. That’s why it’s all the more dangerous and alarming that Republicans are trying to attach egregious policy riders that would roll back Wall Street reform and weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau onto must-pass legislation to keep the government open. That strategy is totally unacceptable and must not be rewarded.”
Earlier today, Senator Merkley joined Senators Chris Coons (D-DE) and Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Sarah Bloom Raskin to call on Republicans to drop ideological Wall Street policy riders from government funding bills and to work with Democrats to fund the government in a responsible way.