WASHINGTON, June 17 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) issued the following statement today after President Barack Obama proposed sweeping new rules for the nation's financial system:

“The president’s plan to re-regulate the financial services industry is a major improvement over our current fundamentally broken system that led to the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.  There are many elements of the president’s plan that are laudable.  Creating a Financial Products Safety Commission to prohibit big banks and mortgage lenders from ripping off Americans would be one of the most important consumer protections in our nation’s history. 

“While the plan is a step in the right direction, we should do even more.  For starters, we need to enact a national usury law so that big banks can’t charge outrageous interest rates and sky-high fees. We also have a responsibility to act now to stop Wall Street speculators from manipulating the price of oil so that gas prices don’t climb past $3 or even $4 a gallon this summer. Finally, if a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist.  

“I look forward to working with the Obama administration and my colleagues in the Senate to make sure that the financial mess we are in today never happens again.”