by Matthew Rusling
WASHINGTON, March 18 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd Monday unveiled a bill aimed at overhauling the country's banking system to avoid the risk of another financial crisis.
In spite of a number of controversial provisions within the bill, reform is likely to pass, as many blame the nation's banking sector for sparking the worst recession since the 1930s, experts said.
Dodd, the bill's sponsor, said Monday on CBS' "Early Show" that the legislation would stop banks from becoming "too big to fail" — a catchphrase often used to describe financial institutions whose failure could spark widespread economic calamity.
"It's two years ago today that Bear Stearns was unraveling, and six months later it was Lehman Brothers on Sept. 15, 2008," he said. "We will stop forever the notion that you're so big as a company that you have that implicit guarantee that the federal taxpayers or the government will bail you out."
The Connecticut senator said the bill had received a significant amount of Republican support, but the legislation could cost large banks billions of dollars and that Republicans were put off by a number of the bill's provisions, noted the Wall Street Journal.
