WASHINGTON — Representative Pramila Jayapal (WA-07), Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, issued the following statement on the anniversary of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank:
“One year ago, Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse became the second largest bank failure in U.S. history. While the bank's wealthy depositors were made whole almost immediately, the systemic failures that allowed the collapse in the first place still have not been addressed.
“Silicon Valley Bank’s collapse was the predictable and direct outcome of a furious 2018 effort by bank lobbyists to evade basic oversight, transparency, and financial stability in favor of profit.
“This anniversary is an opportunity to course correct across the federal government. The Senate must pass Senator Sherrod Brown’s bipartisan ‘Recovering Executive Compensation Obtained from Unaccountable Practices (RECOUP) Act’ to hold the executives of failed banks accountable for their misconduct and claw back their compensation. The Federal Reserve, OCC, and FDIC must strengthen capital requirements to decrease risk throughout the banking system, protect American taxpayers’ money, and ensure that no bank is ‘too big to fail.’ Lastly, as progressives advocated in our 2023 Executive Action Agenda, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) must advance strong rulemaking to curb incentive-based compensation arrangements at financial firms that encourage excessive and inappropriate risk-taking.
“Progressives will continue, as we always have, to demand a rewrite of the rules of a rigged economy so that working families can bank with peace of mind and bank executives are held accountable for reckless behavior and profiteering.”
