Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) commented today on the steep drop in the stock market sparked by the failure of Lehman Brothers and investors’ worries over the health of the financial sector:
“The collapse of Lehman Brothers and the stock markets’ ensuing free fall today are deeply troubling to Rhode Island families worrying about their financial future. This is a new low for the Bush economy – and another sign that the last thing America needs is four more years of the same old ideas.
“What’s more distressing is that even as the markets plummeted, John McCain said again today that ‘the fundamentals of our economy are strong.’ I think Rhode Islanders struggling with sky-high gas prices, record foreclosure rates, and mounting unemployment would disagree. I think the people struggling to hold our financial markets together would disagree. And I think anyone looking forward to the consequences of George Bush’s $7.7 trillion debt would disagree, too.
“As the dust settles on the worst economy in memory, families fighting to protect their livelihoods want to know that we’re working hard to put our financial system back on track. That will take real change in Washington – change we desperately need.”
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