Given the wide public support for reform, this seems like a losing strategy, unless public be damned, we’re helping our friends is the only concern. If you like reform but not this bill, how would you change it?
Republicans voted unanimously Monday to block an effort to overhaul financial regulations from reaching the Senate floor, pledging to hold out for significant changes to the bill even as they acknowledged the political risk of appearing to obstruct a popular cause.
The 57 to 41 vote in favor of beginning debate, short of the 60 needed, was expected, although Democrats did suffer an unanticipated defection when Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.) joined Republicans as a no. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) was prepared to call further votes Tuesday, Wednesday and beyond.
“We need to keep the pressure on to get a deal as quickly as possible,” Reid spokesman Jim Manley said.
About two-thirds of Americans supported stricter regulations on the way banks and other financial institutions conduct their business, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll. Majorities also backed two main components of pending Senate bill: greater federal oversight of consumer loans, and a proposed fund paid for by the financial industry that would go toward dismantling failed firms that put the broader economy at risk.
Given the public support for tougher Wall Street rules, the unanimity that Republicans demonstrated Monday may not endure.
Yes they are doing the right thing by blocking it.
Too many special interests are writing these bills including banking industry interests.
I think the government needs to “pause” for a while.
I’m sick of corporate money writing these bills (and our bills — like having the government spend money on our behalf).
They have been working on this for eight or ten months already and Republican members of the committee have contributed to the bill. Are they right to block this? I say not only NO but HELL NO!
Note to Senate Republicans: If all you are going to do is vote “NO” all the time, why even bother to show up? Just lay a brick on the “NO” button and go home and raise money from your home-state lobbyists already.
The GOP, the party of “HELL NO YOU CAN’T!!!”
The GOP is pissed that the Dems are getting something done, so they want to slow it down before the elections. McConnell tells the lie of the decade, and today McCain is in CBS. The media in this country sucks.
Just Say No! (New GOP slogan)
Why does this bill need to tax banking to establish a $50 billion fund.
Wasn’t $1.5 trillion in bailouts enough of our money?
I guess what I am saying, why do we need to be contributing even more of OUR money to bailing out bank CEOs?
Classic Republican dilemma.
Fall out of favor with voters wanting reform
Regulate the criminals that butter their toast.
Hope this gets lots of press because it will come in handy during election time. The sheeple are perplexed and awaiting canned explanation email from Michael Steele.
Polling the public at large about specific elements of a regulatory bill is funny at best. Most of the people are probably of the “don’t know what it does exactly, but sounds good to me” type.
Here is the bill in plain english:
1. The bill sets up a process through which the federal government can breakdown large corporations that get into trouble. The process is called “orderly liquidation” and is designed to do away with bailouts. Under the system, once a large firm like AIG got into serious trouble the government could takeover the corporation, install new management, and liquidate it under bankruptcy guidelines. The Treasury Department would be authorized to loan money in order to accomplish this process
I personally do not like this as once again if a small business failed it would close doors and these giant ones that pad the governments’ pockets would be saved but it another smaller form. Again it is the rich looking out for the rich. But they are plutocrats.
2. Under the reform package, a federal consumer protection agency would be set up to prevent fraud and deceptive trade practice by mortgage brokers and credit card companies. At issue is how much authority such an agency would have. Democrats want the agency to have broad powers and be separate from the Federal Reserve. Republicans prefer a more limited agency that is under the Federal Reserve.
I personally am for this, but I do not want the fed whom are nothing but banking industry people in charge. Seems the GOP does… tell you anything?
A board would be set up in the Federal Reserve to oversee large financial institutions. The debate again concerns how much authority this council would have. Under Democrats dream scenario, the board could order companies to maintain a certain amount of capital in order to balance out risks they are taking in other places. In addition, the board could theoretically (with a two-thirds vote) make a companies sell off some of its more risky holdings.
Again I have issue with the Fed being involved and again big business getting help while small biz can go suck an egg.
3. The financial reform bill would not outlaw derivatives, but instead attempt to regulate them. It would require almost all derivatives be traded on an open-market. So, ideally, if a bank was trading in derivatives investors could see what they were doing. In addition, this would ideally allow the regulatory agencies (see above) to monitor the risks financial institutions are taking on. Finally, credit rating agencies would then be able to rate companies based on their derivative holdings. The basic idea is to increase transparency which will hopefully keep the firms from taking on too much risk. Part of the problem with the last crisis was that no one knew what kind of derivatives each corporation had and how that was impacting their future.
I agree with everything being out in the open in the free market. This I can get behind.
I would prefer that these rules be set for small business as well IF they are going to do this.
Honestly I would rather have the corporations fail, as they should, and the released work force be free to then form their own corporations and run things leaner. The problem is that we have behemoth companies that are wasteful. It is no longer 1955 and companies need to stop running like it is.
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I messed up the count on it, it should 1-4 Ed if you could fix that I would appreciate. Wish we had a proof button to read over the length of the post and then submit.
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Damn right they should block it. Anything created by Chris Dodd is corrupt through-and-through. Anyone who is for this abortion should study Dodd, his campaign funding, and what he’s done in the past to aid and abet the Wall Street criminals.
If you doubt me, ask yourself why a Democratic White House and a Democratic congress have produced not a single perp walk. They’ve had years to do this.
“A board would be set up in the Federal Reserve to oversee large financial institutions.”
Fox. Henhouse. It’s madness to give the Fed more “oversight” when THEY ARE THE ONES WHO COMPOUNDED THINGS.
We already have the required laws on the books. We don’t need more. What we need is enforcement of current laws, instead of government bureaucrats wacking off to porn on taxpayer’s time. We also need to boot out corrupt pols like Chris Dodd are beholden to no one but Wall Street.
There is never been a problem so bad that a politician couldn’t make worse.
We had tons of regulation in place already and it did nothing to prevent the last meltdown. Why not actually try regulating with the laws that are in place already before adding more! Bernie Madoff went unchecked for years.
@8
“The problem is that we have behemoth companies that are wasteful. It is no longer 1955 and companies need to stop running like it is.”
No .. that is exactly the problem.
I am not willing to sell out to behemoth companies that are wasteful.
If their incompetence and “too big to fail” makes them go the way of the dinosaur, so be it.
I am not willing to make sacrifices on their behalf.
The Teabaggers are wrong. It is not government that is the problem, but these faceless international corporations that don’t give a shit about America and are allow to finance both parties.
Fuck these faceless international corporations that seek to exploit not only us but now seek to have the government to write laws that cater to them.
@Killer Duck (#12)… “We had tons of regulation in place already and it did nothing to prevent the last meltdown.”
The problem was not that regulations were not enforced – the problem was that there was NO regulation of credit default swaps. Senator Graham made sure of that. The housing/mortgage bubble would not have grown to such horrid heights had regulations been in place to prevent worthless securities to be dumped onto unsuspecting (and lied to) buyers, and if risk without disclosure could not have been passed on.
“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (George Santayana)
If we let this market remain unregulated, over time people will forget this lesson on the negative effect on the economy these things can have (when unregulated), and it will happen again.
Politicians seem to think that if that if they loot the U.S. Treasury for the their own personal benefit and call it “reform” then nobody will notice their criminality. However.we DO notice. It just appears that we don’t because Big Media and Congress respect the opinions of its citizens as little as Czarist Russia.
I put undecided because I am not sure what the bill does. If it drives up the cost of doing business, it will block job creation and I am against it. If it actually will help the economy by fixing certain things that went wrong (like loaning money to people with no income) then I am for it.
The ONLY WAY Repugs can show their good will, as opposed to their total corruption, is to introduce a more effective bill, which they won’t do because they are TOTALLY CORRUPT. ((The Dems only mostly corrupt–big difference.))
The fix is in when congress tries to “regulated” something that should be illegal.
Why did we not have these boom-bust cycles for the last 80 years? GLASS-STEAGALL. The argument against it is we need all these fancy fraud/gambling instruments or the market will move to London or Asia. WELL LET THEM TAKE THE FAILURES!! Good Jeebus how stupid can we be????
This is one of the larger examples of why I dislike the hard-on libertarian position==it destroys society. It raises philosophy above real live actual recent/current EXPERIENCE!!! Theory should never trump experience. thats FAITH over SCIENCE. Bad Karma.
How do I get off this planet?
Hey Benji–what if it does both?
Benjamin…I hear ya, and agree. But when we discuss driving up the cost of business, we need context. Interest rates are at historic lows, rates that cannot get much (any?) lower. If this bill becomes law and borrowing rates for businesses go up by, say 1.5%, we’re still at historic lows. What kind of barrier to business is that?
Will some on the right still uses this as a barrier to progress? Because progress = progressive, and at that point we may as well be Maoists.
Whoa, sorry, channeled some Beck there.
Yawn.
Tired arguments from little minds will change nothing. The Republicans and Democrats will do exactly as We say, we paid for it after all.
We are considering hiring Dallas as our chief bullshit megaphone.
Benji-Olo==what if it does “drive up the cost of business?” That could be relevant ONLY IF the cost of business is already at its appropriate cost level. Olo, you show the way that cost is not everything, but you still put too much emphasis on it (I blame Beck).
But the truth is, many valueable societal goals drive up the cost of business==just as it should. Child Labor Laws, Workers Comp, Safety REgs==all drive up the cost of business====ask those coal miners in West Virginia.
Its a silly liebertarian nonsense concern. Olo==shake it off. Benji==get real.
Referencing Dallas’ Bullshit Megaphone could not be a good thing.
The US should consider an approach that other countries use that weathered the meltdown much better (e.g. Canada, Oz, India). Peer review. Those countries have yearly peer reviews from regulators and major banks from other countries and use that information to improve their systems. The US and Britain do not, and it shows.
qb–I can hear it now. You want to socialize our wealth generating economic system and turn us into FRANCE!!! Make us eat CHEESE!!!
You deny our “American Exceptionalism.” ((What a load of self delunsional crap!!)
Recommending a rational approach when the issue is corruption is cute though. I’ve added your idea to my scrapbook.
Keep the good stuff coming.
>> Hmeyers said, on April 27th, 2010 at 3:15 am
>> Too many special interests are writing these bills including banking industry interests.
The special interests are the _BANKS_ who want it BLOCKED.
Conservatives do the bidding of the rich. In this case the banks.
It’s really that simple.
This thread illustrates the issue in a nutshell: nobody understands WHY the republicans are blocking the effort. So support for the decision is limited to people who either support the republicans or oppose the democrats as a matter of course.
The republicans need to do a better job of getting their message out.
The GOP was in negotiations for a bipartisan bill, negotiations were going well, then Obama came in and torpedoed the whole effort. He told his Senators he did not want to go with the Republicans, but wanted a single party bill that they could use against Republicans.
Not sure what all the changed provisions are.
One part is that a firms competitors get charged for bailing out a failing firm, while before the money is collected from all companies beforehand.
>> MikeN said, on April 27th, 2010 at 6:11 am
>> The GOP was in negotiations for a bipartisan bill,
By “bi-partisan” you mean one Republican who was was never negotiating in good faith, anyway.
That’s the way the GOP rolls, baby.
Mike N===just how stupid are you? Not stupid?==How much are you being paid to destroy America?
The Repuke Party can offer its own bill, direct to the American Public if not thru the system, if they had any ideas at all.
You can be fooled over and over again without being in fact part of the problem.
Why do you Hate America Mikey?
@Greg Allen
Speak specifics of the bill or your opinion has no merit.
I say setting up $50 billion fund for inept banks is a bailout and I’m tired of bailing out the rich.
Your partisan-shaded rose colored glasses do nothing to assuage me from that opinion. You can say 2+2 doesn’t equal 4 and the sky isn’t blue, but more bank bailouts in the disguise of reform is disgusting.
I care nothing of party politics and at this point I’d rather see deadlock than this “one step forward, two steps back” thing we are supposed to call progress.
I’m underwhelmed.