Shelby, Frank agree on need for more oversight

The top Republican on the Senate Banking panel and his Democratic counterpart in the House on Sunday agreed on the need for more oversight of the financial markets. 

“What caused this? What’s the root cause of all this, where we are today? Greed and lack of regulatory oversight,” said Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), ranking member of the Senate Banking Committee. “Let’s be honest. The Federal Reserve and the other institutions overlooking our financial system — they didn't know what was going on in these institutions. If they did, we wouldn't be where we were today.”

{mosads}Shelby, who expressed concerns over the cost of an emergency measure aimed to help the financial markets, also said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the crisis is not yet contained and might repeat itself “if we don't have massive, tough regulatory reform in the next Congress.”

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who also appeared on the program, found himself in rare complete agreement with Shelby.

“All right, let me just say, being Jewish, I don’t ordinarily do this on a Sunday morning, but I just want to say an ‘amen’ to Sen. Shelby,” Frank stated.

Lawmakers on Sunday expressed their desire to make changes to the massive taxpayer-funded bailout. However, prominent members of Congress also stated that Capitol Hill needs to act quickly in order to shore up America’s financial markets.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) has faced some dissension from the more conservative members of his caucus on the administration’s proposal, but he said Congress must still intervene.

“This is not a time for ideological purity. I'm a free market noninterventionist. But we face a crisis, and if we don't act and we don't act quickly, we're going to jeopardize our economy, Americans' jobs and their savings,” said Boehner on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”

On the same program, Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.), chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, agreed with Boehner but said Congress should not just pass the package as is.

“I want it clean and simple, but again, I want accountability, I want some reciprocity here that doesn't get away and complicate the secretary's job. But we're going to be talking about this for decades, and while we need to act quickly on this, there is an expectation as well that we'll act intelligently about this,” said Dodd.

Other Democrats emphasized the need to look out for taxpayers first before providing more relief for Wall Street firms.

“We need to put the taxpayers first, ahead of bondholders, shareholders, executives,” said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), chairman of the Joint Economic Committee. “You need transparency. You need oversight to make sure this huge amount of money is spent without favoritism, in a fair way, and that people see what's going on as it happens.”

Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” Schumer also emphasized the need for a second stimulus package but said it may not have to be included in the emergency measure.

“We will not ‘Christmas tree’ this bill,” said Schumer. “[The second stimulus package] doesn't necessarily have to be part of the bailout … And I think our leaders both in the House and Senate are coming to the conclusion it should be alongside the bailout, but not part of it.”