Congress Poised To Launch 9/11-Styled Commission On Financial Crisis

Updated Below

The House of Representatives came closer to agreement on Monday afternoon on the establishment of a 9/11-styled commission that would be independent of Congress and granted the power of subpoena to investigate the origins of the financial crisis.

Aides on the Hill said that the House will likely vote on the measure Wednesday, adding that the chances of passage were high. The office of the bill's cosponsor, Congressman Darrell Issa, said the legislation would be similar to that recently passed by the Senate.

The concept of the commission is pegged to the investigative body that looked into the intelligence collapse precededing the terrorist attacks on 9/11.

The key, in this case, is that the body - eight or (likely) ten members, split evenly by party affiliation - would have the power of subpoena, compelling the key players to testify. "It is," said one staffer involved in the creating of this legislation, "essential."

Aides familiar with the proposal say that, "in terms of the committee's functions," it would focus on "the very broad root causes of the crisis, issues of fraud and abuse in the financial sector, and the role [or lack thereof] played by financial regulators."

"There is not anything that isn't under this commission's purview when it comes to the financial crisis," one Republican Hill staffer concluded, adding that the commission would also have a "global outlook" when it came to monetary policy and credit.

As to the concerns of some firms, that such an investigation could expose proprietary or sensitive information, the staffer said that the committee would try to respect materials that would deeply affect the future of these firms or banks. "At the same time," he added, "this crisis happened and it happened under their watch and in order to address this, there is nothing that the commission should not have access to."

Elected officials on the state, local, and federal level would be forbidden from serving on the commission. Instead, a bipartisan group of individuals - whose qualifications were agreed upon - would serve. The goal, the Republican aide said, would be to have some report produced within the next three or four months, with a drop-dead deadline by the end of December.

UPDATE: A Democratic aide writes in to slightly correct this post. The House is still figuring out how the commission would be constructed, specifically if Democrats would have a larger say on who could serve on the investigative body. In addition, the aide says that the likely deadline for reporting would be further away that three or four months.

Comments

[biteme43]

It would be nice if they are allowed to complete their investigation without any outside interference, but considering who they are investigating they would have to be members who have no ties to those investigated and would have be out from under any financial benefit from them as well.
Otherwise it will be a waste of time as was the 911 commision. We did NOT get to the bottom of what happened on 911. It was a coverup. This could end up the same.

[MadAppraiser]

Does America really want to enter the dark world of the economic elite, and examine the objectives of the American architects of economic policy? America might not like the findings of a Congressional committee investigation of intelligent, educated, financial professionals functioning in an environment of unlimited economic resources! A correctly executed Congressional investigation of this economic magnitude threatens the pillars of American capitalism!

[namewithheld]

Time to invest in Home Depot because there's gonna be a lot of whitewashing going on again.

[Airmail56]

Will this be like when they looked into who cut the funding for Walter Reed Hospitial? Found out it was Congress?

[VINER]

well, the city of NY is trying to correct what the first commission handed us.
Everyone can help, see: http://nyccan.org/

- v

[jerrypl]

Sam---it sure took them long enough. I hope we can be told the truth.

http://eye-on-washington.blogspot.com

[Independent voter]

Why bother?

Nothing was done as a result of the 9/11 commision and nothing was done as a result of the Bush admin torture memos.

[eahce]

Why am I feeling NO confidence with a congressional committee investigating the financial collapse? Is it because of the 9/11 commission outcome or the fact that wall st is the most heavily lobbied group in Washington?

[scottfrommodesto]

Here come the inside jobbers...

[naturallight]

yeah here I am. And let me be the first to say, of course they want a do nothing commission where no one is held legally accountable because the Democrats like Schumer, Dodd, etc, etc, are GUILTY. Just like they are GUILTY of supporting Boosh's illegal wars. The truth hurts doesn't it? d eath to the fake two party system.

[gypsysailor]

There are probably a lot of places to start this investigation, but I do hope this commision looks into the run-up of gas prices last summer. My personal opinion is that unrealistic hike in gas prices that began in the U.S. and then went global is one of the underlying factors in the tanking of the economy. The last of our everyday disposible income was sucked from working Americans to the point that none of us could afford to buy anything extra...those things that keep an economy going. WHO GOT THE MONEY?

[rfshunt]

Like many posters here, I'm skeptical. But I do retain some optimism.

For this to work any commission would need a smart and tough interrogator. Remember, FDR did this with the Pecora commission and it was tremendously successful in exposing corruption and bad business practices.

[MrLeeGreaterHongKong]

I'm guessing that they will conclude, that in spite of the fact that the Federal Register was more than 80,000 pages in 2008, the financial crises was due to lack of regulation. They will say how it wasn't the government's fault, because it lacked the adequate regulatory powers needed to combat the laissez faire run amok. Therefore, they will inform us that to prevent such things in the future we must all submit to further erosions of liberty for our own safety.

If there is any justice in the world, the commissions findings will be reported from within a horse corral along with the other manure.

[rfshunt]

How pages of regulations does Somalia have? Maybe you should move there and enjoy the benefits of a regulation-free society.

[MrLeeGreaterHongKong]

I didn't realize that all available choices in this matter were to be limited to two: Slavery under a quasi-fascist government or struggling to survive where gangs war to be the state and the outside world thinks it knows what is best for you.

Thanks for clearing this up!

[3M Rocker]

Another "bipartisan" whitewash committee? Are we going to call in Lee Hamilton?

[thinksink]

First order of business a color coded economic alert.

[HST]

Second order of business raise the alert to mauve.

[WorkingClass]

Yeah, like nobody knows what happened. They will give us a whitewash and anybody who disagrees will be a conspiracy theorist. We will have our blue ribbon official lie for the history books.