U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Thursday that without sweeping financial regulatory reforms, economic recovery would not be enough to ensure U.S. strength and stability.

Unfortunately, the regulatory regime that failed so terribly leading up to the financial crisis is precisely the regulatory regime we have today, Geithner said in an excerpt of testimony to be delivered to the congressional Joint Economic Committee.

That is why recovery alone is not enough. To ensure the vitality, the strength and the stability of our economy ... we must bring our system of financial regulation into the twenty-first century. We need comprehensive financial reform, Geithner said.

The Obama administration has proposed a wide-ranging rewrite of financial rules to try to ensure a crisis like the one that nearly toppled the financial system last year does not happen again.

The U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee has been working for weeks on a regulatory overhaul bill, and the Senate Banking Committee kicks off a similar effort on Thursday.

(Reporting by David Lawder; Editing by James Dalgleish)

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