HOYER: REPEAL MAYBE A MISTAKE

Neither the House reform bill, nor legislation being debated in the Senate, would reinstate Glass-Steagall.
But House Democratic Leader Steny Hoyer told reporters Tuesday at his weekly news conference that such a move was ''certainly under discussion ... As someone who voted to repeal Glass-Steagall, maybe that was a mistake.''
The 1933 Glass-Steagall laws were adopted at the same time the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp was set up. Both reforms came in the Great Depression, when thousands of banks collapsed, wiping out the savings of millions of Americans.
Glass-Steagall was largely repealed in 1999 under the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act during the Clinton administration amid lobbying pressure from bankers, including those keen to merge the financial firms that later came to comprise Citigroup.
Today, supporters of stronger regulation of Wall Street and the banks say it is no coincidence that America has suffered a series of financial crises since deregulators gained the upper hand politically in Washington in the 1980s.
"The repeal of Glass-Steagall has exposed the U.S. economy to a level of risk that is simply unacceptable,'' Hinchey said
"Congress ignored history in 1999 when it repealed the Glass-Steagall Act and the American people have been forced to pay the price while bailing out these mega-banks, which should have never existed in the first place,'' he said.
Opponents dispute this and say restoring Glass-Steagall might not have prevented last year's crisis or others.
Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley declined to comment. No immediate comment was available from Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo.
(Additional reporting by Juan Lagorio and Jonathan Spicer in New York; Editing by Dan Grebler)