Obama takes financial reform message on the road
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Obama is heading to New York City later this week to push for a financial overhaul package in a venue rich with presidential history...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is heading to New York City later this week to push for a financial overhaul package in a venue rich with presidential history.
The speech Thursday at Cooper Union in Manhattan will mark a year since Obama first outlined his ideas for reform and nearly two years since the financial market meltdown.
It comes as a Senate showdown looms on a package of new regulations that Republicans have so far unanimously opposed. Over the weekend, Sen. Mitch McConnell urged top Democrats to go back to the drawing board and assemble a package that can win bipartisan support. But Democrats accused McConnell and others of helping big banks fend off needed regulation.
Announcing the Cooper Union speech Monday, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama wants to “remind Americans what is at stake” if the rules of the road on Wall Street remain unchanged.
In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama said, “Every day we don’t act, the same system that led to bailouts remains in place, with the exact same loopholes and the exact same liabilities. And if we don’t change what led to the crisis, we’ll doom ourselves to repeat it.”
WATCH THE PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS HERE:
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Obama first spoke at Cooper Union as a candidate in March 2008 — attacking lax regulatory practices he said had allowed the likes of Enron and WorldCom to “push the envelope, pump up earnings, disguise losses and otherwise engage in accounting fraud.”
The 151-year-old college has also seen memorable speeches by candidates Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt, as well as sitting Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Bill Clinton.
A year ago, Obama delivered his prescription for regulatory reform at Federal Hall, opposite the New York Stock Exchange, appealing to Wall Street executives to help — not hinder — the drafting of rules to avoid another market collapse.
“It is neither right nor responsible after you’ve recovered with the help of your government to shirk your obligation to the goal of wider recovery, a more stable system, and a more broadly shared prosperity,” he said then.
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