Statement by Senator Bernie Sanders Applauding the Minneapolis Fed President's Call to Break Up Too Big To Fail Banks

CHARLESTON, S.C. — U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders issued the following statement after Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari, a former Goldman Sachs banker and manager of the government's Troubled Asset Relief Program, gave a speech calling for "breaking up large banks into smaller, less connected, less important entities":

"I am delighted that the new president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve believes that we need to break up too big to fail banks.

"If a bank is too big to fail, it is too big to exist. When it comes to Wall Street reform that must be our bottom line. The risk of another bailout is too great, and the economic and political power of a handful of huge financial institutions is simply too large.

"We need a banking system that is part of the productive economy – making loans at affordable rates to small- and medium-sized businesses so that we can create decent-paying jobs. Wall Street cannot continue to be an island unto itself, gambling trillions in risky financial instruments, making huge profits, assured that, if their schemes fail, the taxpayers will be there to bail them out."