Sen. Elizabeth Warren doesn't like the Dodd-Frank law that was enacted to protect consumers from Wall Street banks any more than the big banks themselves do.
"I agree with you," she said, addressing Citigroup by name from the Senate floor Friday night. "Dodd-Frank isn't perfect—it should have broken you into pieces."
Many progressives thought the banking bill, which passed in 2010 in response to the financial meltdown of 2008, was more like window dressing crusading as reform. Warren appears to be one of them.
She ticked through a list of Citigroup alumni who now hold powerful positions in government, ripping the mask off a host of federal financial agencies that are essentially run by Citigroup alums.
Here's a few alums Warren mentioned (taken directly from her speech): the U.S. trade representative and the person nominated to be his deputy (who is presently an assistant secretary at Treasury); a recent chairman of the National Economic Council at the White House; a recent chairman of the Office of Management and Budget (which oversees the federal budget for the president) went to Citigroup immediately after leaving the White House; and another chairman of the Office of Management Budget is a Citigroup alum.
"But I'm double counting here," she noted, "because he's now the Secretary of the Treasury."
Warren noted that when all the bailout money from federal government is added up across the agencies, "Citi received nearly half a trillion dollars in bailouts—that's half a trillion, with a T." It's also $140 billion more than the next biggest bank got, she said.
She also found a point of agreement between conservatives and progressives.
"Democrats don't like Wall Street bailouts; Republicans don't like Wall Street bailouts; the American people are disgusted by Wall Street bailouts," she said. Yet Congress is on verge of passing a bill that will do nothing for middle-class Americans, she said, "but raise the risk that taxpayers will have to bail out the biggest banks once again."
Warren would be happy to open up Dodd-Frank and course correct, she added.
"If this Congress is going to open up Dodd-Frank in the months ahead, then let's open it up to get tougher, not to create more bailout opportunities."
Amen.