White House Stresses Satisfaction With Progress Of Consumer Protection Reform

White House officials on Wednesday insisted that they are satisfied with congressional action on regulatory reform legislation and disputed a Huffington Post report on Tuesday that they had threatened to veto a bill if its consumer-protection provisions were too weak.

"The White House has been working closely with [House Financial Services Committee] Chairman [Barney] Frank and [Senate Banking Committee] Chairman [Chris] Dodd for months on creating a strong and balanced consumer financial protection agency and we are confident the bill will streamline government, protect consumers, and provide a level playing field for responsible service providers," said spokeswoman Jennifer Psaki.

In recent days, Frank has pared down the White House version of the CFPA. The new version would not cover telecommunications companies or real estate brokerages or have the power to require financial institutions to offer "plain vanilla" products and services. In light of these changes, several economic observers had called on the president to demonstrate, once more, his commitment to passing a wide-reaching and strong CFPA - something that Psaki said the White House is committed to doing.

The administration, she said, would push back "against outside groups opposed to a Consumer Financial Protection Agency... [it's a] fight we are happy to have."

The remarks from Psaki came less than 24 hours after White House press secretary Robert Gibbs appeared to offer a more skeptical take on the status of the CFPA.

Asked during Tuesday's briefing if "the White House [was] concerned at all" about the paring down of the reform proposal, Gibbs replied: "This is a big concern of the President's and a big concern of the administration." This seemed to be a comment about the moves by Frank. But the White House insisted that Gibbs was simply stressing the president's commitment to the CFPA.

The Huffington Post also asked Gibbs on Tuesday if the president was "willing not to sign a bill if he thinks it's too weak?" To which Gibbs replied: "The President would not sign any bill that he thought was too weak."

Gibbs went on to stress his confidence that the president would sign a bill into law when all the compromising and horse-trading was done.

With the bill itself still far from passage, a veto is of course a remote hypothetical.

But Gibbs' remarks seemed to be enough of a warning shot at Congress that another reporter at the Tuesday briefing felt compelled to follow up. "Is that a veto threat?" the reporter asked. "Will he veto a bill that doesn't include [a strong CFPA]?"

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Comments

[Oakland]

Like we believe a damn thing Obama says. He promised to repeal the Bush tax cuts, get the hell out of Iraq, hold torturers accountable, renegotiate NAFTA, and to take steps to stop the offshoring of all of our jobs. I'm still waiting. Thank god I'm not holding my breath. He sold the voters out. His looks more like Bush's third term than change.

[PoliticalAmazon]

Okay, that's one of the worst photoshop jobs I've ever seen!

It's called "defringe" on the version I have.

I think my potted fern could do a better job, and it doesn't even have opposible thumbs, either.

[ESerafina42]

Exactly what I was going to say, Amazon. Wow - that's bad! I could do better than that, and photo adjusting isn't even the main part of my job.

[WeMustSpeakOut]

"White House officials on Wednesday insisted that they are satisfied with congressional action on regulatory reform legislation and disputed a Huffington Post report on Tuesday that they had threatened to veto a bill if its consumer-protection provisions were too weak."

Was there really much doubt? "Hey, guys relax! No problem if the bill is too week. It's only about the consumer here."
I would likely suffer cardiac arrest if this President actually stood firm and demanded strong legislature for the people and vetoed anything less. That is the stuff that apparently existed only in my dreams during candidate Obama's campaign. It has been a rude awakening.

So Franks comes out of the gate with the "White House version of the CFPA" and immediately waters it down? Hey.... single payer anyone? The familiar pattern emerges once again.

So what comes next Mr. President? More triangulation and big speeches with catch phrases like "public option" that don't actually mean jack sh|t but dupe some Dems into supporting heavily flawed corporate legislation?
Spare putting us through the emotional ringer this time and carry out the theatrics without using us in another bait and switch. Oh... and it'd be great if you could also refrain from scape-goating progressives. You remember them don't you? The people that banged on doors and answered your phones for you? I remember it well.

[jazzman]

If you don't know where you're going any old route will do. If you don't know what your values are any old bill will do. Of course Obama is satisfied. It has the name consumer protection on it. So what if it waters everything down like the bankruptcy bill did. There are no core principles, values, or things worth fighting for in the Obama world so why not just compromise now and be satisfied.

[BurtonOerney]

What does '...waters everything down like the bankruptcy bill...' mean? The cram-down legislation did not make it out of committee. You don't mention any particular 'core principles' here. The only thing that looks like one would be resistance to compromise. Which values should Obama be fighting for that everybody shares? Making sure that some regulated financial products are uncomplicated? That sounds like a subjective definition that would be difficult to enforce to me. But what do I know? I probably don't have any values either. If only the president would impose some on me...

[PoliticalAmazon]

Barak Obama is one of the best carnies I think we've seen in America. He is flipping on every one of his campaign promises, and squandering our taxpayer dollars as fast as he can.

Well, I guess with the Obamas we get a good idea of what it would be like to have Sarah Palin in the WH. Obama may be smarter and he may give purtier speeches, but his ethics, especially his work ethics, and compassion for the suffering of the rest of the country, is about on the level of Sarah Palin's.

[PATina]

Man... just when you thought they were finally going to do the right thing (veto a weak bill)... they flip the script and say they are satisfied (w/ the same weak bill).

[StJames]

What a load of crap

[TJCole]

Remember you are not Investing your money, you are Gambling your money with already proven swindlers.­.!

[TJCole]

Why bother with reform when there are nearly no consumers.­..!

Obama and Geithner killed the Consumer Economy when they favored enriching and rewarding our corrupt banks..and allowing them to gouge Americans who use Credit and even Debit Cards...!

It's fundamental we needed to reform banking, instead we gave them the keys to the Kingdom...

[PlaceboStudman]

How any president or any administration can express a sense of satisfaction over anything when so much more needs to be done, is beyond me. And more always needs to be done. Life, society, evolution is a work in progress, and there should never be a time to stop and enjoy a moment of satisfaction over how far we've come when there is so much more to do

[sixyfivepercentwater]

What? ". . .there should never be a time to stop and enjoy a moment of satisfaction. . ." why not? It's important to do that. However, I agree that this is just shameless self-puffery by the administration - not unexpected, but shameless nonetheless. They should wait until they've done something really wonderful to point to themselves and say "Look how great we are!"

[PlaceboStudman]

People are always saying how they are going to wait until the end of Obama's term to judge him.

Fair enough

I also think it's a pretty good idea for a president to wait until the end of his term to evaluate his own performance, instead of evaluating each individual success or failure, because no one knows the end result of one policy or another, or how one policy affects another until years later

[ESerafina42]

Remember our previous fearless leader? "We must stop these terrorist killers (referring to a suicide bombing in Israel). Now, watch this drive." Now *that's* tacky.

[kbkw54]

Why is Obama spending $10 million dollars of taxpayers money to fly to Denmark? Are the Olypics going to Chicago more important to Obama than healthcare? Obama is also taking Oprah in his trip

[jazzman]

It would create jobs and tourism which would bring in money. There is a rationale behind it and I understand it. The upper midwest could also use a shot in the arm so why not? It's also something novel in that it would actually be 'made and produced in America. That's something you don't see happening very much in today's world.

[PoliticalAmazon]

It is costing London over $14billion (4 times the estimated cost) for the 2012 Olympics.

Usually cities without preexisting venues end up way in the red on the Olympics, and that's IF anyone would want to go to Chicago.

I believe the Obamas would end up hosing Americans for 500 trips back and forth to Chicago before he leaves office for the Olympics.

In case you haven't noticed, our economy is failing, and Obama is doing precious little to turn it around.

He's like a kid in a candy store, running around grabbing all the goodies, and not realizing that he has to work to earn the goodies.

Actually, the Obamas are acting more like the Palins, with their complete disregard for the taxpayers, completely unworried about the impact their high-living (while many Americans are having difficulty feeding their kids) has on our nation.