WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is going to Wall Street on the first anniversary of the Lehman Brothers collapse to outline financial changes to avert a future crisis like the one that sent the global economy into a tailspin.
Obama has called on Congress to pass a sweeping overhaul of how financial institutions behave but has seen slower-than-sought action. Administration officials said the president will use Lehman Brothers as a starting point to again decry a hands-off approach from Washington that enabled irresponsible lending that sent the nation's largest financial institutions to the brink of collapse and the larger economy to the edge.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the president would focus on "the need to take the next series of steps in financial regulatory reform" — in other words: Congress, stop stalling and get it done.
The speech comes as the same banks that received tens of billions of taxpayer dollars last year to stay afloat are again betting on the same bonds, commodities and exotic financial products that landed them in trouble.
There is, however, nothing Obama or Washington can do without Congress' action.
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