WASHINGTON — Closer watch over Wall Street will help consumers make better-informed choices about investing and shine light on the shadowy deals that caused the financial crisis, President Barack Obama said Saturday in pushing Congress to pass overhaul legislation.
In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama said the bill also would curb predatory lending practices, prevent banks from taking on too much risk and give shareholders more of a say.
“Put simply, Wall Street reform will bring greater security to folks on Main Street,” the president said.
“My responsibility as president isn’t just to help our economy rebound from this recession; it’s to make sure an economic crisis like the one that helped trigger this recession never happens again,” he said. “That’s what Wall Street reform will help us do.”
The Senate is debating the broadest rewrite of the rules governing Wall Street since the Great Depression. A final vote is possible as early as this week. The bill would then have to be merged with the House’s version.
The legislation would set up a mechanism to watch out for risks in the financial system, create a method to liquidate large failing firms and write new rules for complex securities blamed for helping precipitate the 2008 economic crisis. It also would create a new consumer protection agency, a key point for Obama.
The Senate version calls for an independent bureau within the Federal Reserve to write and enforce regulations that would police lending, while the House bill has a stand- alone agency.
Republicans and Democrats have come together on some areas of the reform, but they disagree on plenty.
Republicans used their weekly address, by Rep. Chris Lee of New York, to accuse Obama and Democrats of promoting economic policies that rely too much on spending and not enough on cutting.
