Washington, DC – House Speaker Nancy Pelosi appointed commissioners today to a Congressionally-created commission to determine the causes of the financial crisis.  Congressman John B. Larson (CT-01), Chairman of the Democratic Caucus, led the fight in the House to create the commission.  He issued the following statement in response to Pelosi’s choices:

 

“Almost a year after this financial crisis began the American people are still looking for answers as to how we got here and how we can keep this from happening again.  Speaker Pelosi brought us one step closer to getting those answers today with her appointment of three exceptionally qualified experts to our commission to investigate the financial markets.  This commission has been an important issue to me since last year when we first saw signs of a meltdown in our financial sector.  I am thrilled to see it move forward under the stewardship of Phil Angelides, Brooksley Born and John Thompson.

 

“As this commission forms, Congress is moving forward with a bold agenda to rebuild our economy and put Americans back to work.  We are enacting major tenets of the economic plan laid out by President Obama and approved by this Congress and moving forward on important financial regulatory reform.  At the same time, I believe it is important that this commission be able to take a thorough and broad look at what happened in our financial markets and return a fair assessment of the legislative, tax and cultural factors that led to the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.  We are giving them a monumental task with and the strength of our future economy is resting on their shoulders.  I believe they are up to the task.”