Philadelphia Best

THE PRESIDENT: Patricia, thank you so much for sharing your story, and doing such a wonderful job. Good afternoon, everybody. Before I start with my remarks I want to acknowledge some people who’ve been working diligently on this issue, in some cases for years. First of all, our Secretary of the Treasury, Tim Geithner is here. Christina Romer, the Chair of — there she is — of my Council of Economic Advisers, is here. Senator Danny Akaka from Hawaii; Representative Steve Driehaus of Ohio; Representative Walt Minnick of Idaho; Representative Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania; Representative Al Green of Texas. Karen Mills, our outstanding Administrator of the Small Business Administration; Sheila Bair, who’s been doing a heroic job trying to deal with the banking situation as Chairman of the FDIC; Mayor Michael Nutter of Philadelphia; and my National Economic Advisor, Larry Summers. And finally, we’ve got some special guests, some of the finest attorney generals who are fighting against consumer fraud and have been dealing with some of the consequences of the issues that we’re discussing here today — I’m proud to have them here: My former seatmate in the Illinois State Senate, Attorney General Lisa Madigan; Andrew Cuomo of New York; Martha Coakley of Massachusetts; and Roy Cooper of North Carolina. Please give them all a big round of applause. (Applause.) Now, for the last several months, this administration has been working with Congress to reform an outdated system of financial regulations and lax oversight that helped lead to last year’s crisis. And I want to thank some people here who are working tirelessly on this issue — first of all, Chairman Chris Dodd of the Senate Banking Committee, Chairman Barney Frank of the House Financial Services Committee, Richard Shelby, also of the Senate Banking Committee — for the leadership and enthusiasm that they have shown throughout this process. Part of our reform effort involves putting in place new safeguards that would help prevent the irresponsibility and …

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