Four years ago, this nation was suffering from a near-collapse of our financial system.

While there are differences of opinion as to what was the most significant trigger, a bi-partisan Senate Committee report — known as the Levin-Coburn Report — asserted that the crisis was the result of “high risk, complex financial products; undisclosed conflicts of interest; and the failure of regulators, the credit rating agencies, and the market itself to rein in the excesses of Wall Street.”

While this period of our history will be written and re-written over and over again, Congress and the Administration knew that the status quo was unacceptable. So together they passed landmark legislation to address many of the issues that were highlighted by that tumultuous period.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is a vital and comprehensive response to the financial crisis — an event that devastated the American economy, cost the American people trillions of dollars and millions of jobs, and undermined the confidence that our financial system requires if it is to thrive and support a growing economy.

The sweeping scope of this financial reform legislation sometimes obscures the fact that, despite its breadth, it is rooted in a handful of sound principles that should have been more firmly in place before the crisis, and whose embrace serves to make markets more stable and efficient. Simple principles like. . . .

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