Lucas,
In 1929, Wall Street crashed the economy, causing the Great Depression.
The Glass-Steagall Act — a law designed to protect Main Street's savings from Wall Street's gambling — was a major part of Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt's response.
For nearly seven decades, it worked. For nearly seven decades, Wall Street lobbied for its repeal.
It was repealed in 1999.
You know what happened to our economy in 2008.
Now: It's time to bring back Glass-Steagall.
Join Public Citizen in calling on our members of Congress to do all they can to reinstate Glass-Steagall.
It was Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) — the Harvard professor turned consumer crusader turned U.S. senator — who introduced the 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act (S. 1282).
Sen. Warren's tireless work to protect consumers like you is what prompted Public Citizen to honor her during our upcoming Gala.
But we need to make sure her colleagues also do the right thing to rein in Wall Street and keep Big Banks from gambling with taxpayer-insured deposits.
The bipartisan bill's nine current co-sponsors hail from across the political spectrum, from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
Please take a moment to sign our petition urging every senator to join the list of co-sponsors.
Today the too big to fail banks are even more bloated than they were before the 2008 crash.
The 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act would solve this problem by requiring federally insured banks to separate their high-risk tinkering with complex financial instruments — derivatives, hedge funds and the like — from their ordinary commercial banking activities used by working families — checking, savings, loans and other plain vanilla banking services.
Despite our struggling economy, Wall Street's chronic recklessness shows no sign of abating.
The very least Congress should do is protect those of us working in the real economy from the greed-drunk risks of Big Banks.
Add your name to show you support Sen. Elizabeth Warren's 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act.
Thanks for all you do,
Rick Claypool
Public Citizen's Online Action Team
action@citizen.org