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Merging the topics of my previous two posts, here's a classic Sarbanes Banking Committee moment, as recounted by Bill Bradford in 1997:

[Alan] Greenspan ... recommended to a Senate committee that economic regulations all should be sunsetted. Senator Paul Sarbanes accused him of "playing with fire, or indeed throwing gasoline on the fire," and asked him whether he favored a sunset provision in the authorization of the Fed.

Greenspan coolly answered that he did. Do you actually mean, demanded the senator, that the Fed "should cease to function unless affirmatively continued"? "That is correct, sir," Greenspan responded. "All right," the senator came back. "The Defense Department?" "Yes."

The Senator could scarcely believe his ears.

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