Frank Allowing Weakening Amendments to Financial Reform to Pass Without Roll Call Votes
As markup on financial reform legislation continued today in the House Financial Service Committee, a pattern has emerged in which committee members are not forced to go on the record to vote for key amendments that weaken financial reform. Instead, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Rep. Barney Frank, is calling voice votes in which the yea or nays against certain weakening provisions are not recorded.
Two of these weakening amendments have been particularly in the banks' favor. One amendment, the Miller-Moore Amendment to HR 3126, the Consumer Financial Protection Agency bill, exempts 98 percent of banks (8,000 of 8,200), all of which were covered by the President's plan, from the oversight authority of the proposed new CFPA.
Because exempting so many banks from regulation is highly unpopular, members of Congress don't want voters to know that they voted for such ridiculous measures. So Chairman Frank was allowed to merely call for a voice vote. That way, the committee members don't have to answer for where they stand.
The same thing happened last week on a vote on the regulation of derivatives, the exotic financial instruments that Warren Buffett called "weapons of financial mass destruction." A key weakening amendment, passed by voice vote in committee, would ban the Securities and Exchange commission and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (the regulators in charge of overseeing derivatives) from stopping derivatives that seem abusive or risky to the markets. Not allowing the regulators to stop derivatives that appear abusive is like telling a cop that he can't intervene if he sees what appears to be a crime in process.
In these votes, the banks won, and members dodge retribution from voters.
Meanwhile, the CFPA and other regulators will fall short of meeting the goals that President Obama set for regulating the markets, thus putting Americans at risk of another financial disaster.
As a veteran financial watchdog of the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, John Taylor, states in regard to the CFPA bill:
The bill is unacceptable; it does not reign in the outrageous and abusive practices in the banking industry. Congress is failing to deliver on President Obama's commitment to achieve fundamental reforms of the financial system. The bill's flaws are so glaring that it's impossible not to see the influence of the banking and credit card lobbies. The bill's intentional inadequacies assure that working families will continue to struggle with inappropriate, deceptive, and high cost financial products.
If members of Congress are going to vote in favor of the big banks, they should go on the record; that way the big banks know where to send the checks.
Financial reform is still a top issue of many Americans. The media might not be covering it as much as it did a year ago, but for Americans who have lost their retirement savings, their jobs, and frequently their homes--it's still a huge issue. A poll recently released by the SEIU showed that 74 percent of Americans agree that "the greed and risky decision of banks and financial companies led to the financial crisis and recession and its time that Congress crackdown on their reckless practices to protect consumers."
After more than a year in office, the public is no longer inclined to lay the blame for the financial bailout and its consequences on the Republicans. If Democrats fail to pass meaningful financial reform, the American public will hold Democratic officeholders in general accountable, whether or not they go on the record.
Follow Mike Elk on Twitter: www.twitter.com/MikeElk
Michael J. Panzner: Treasury Officials Meet With Financial Bloggers
The meeting, admittedly, left most of us feeling like we had more questions after it ended than when it started -- I did learn a few things at the gathering that I found particularly interesting.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
I hope there are more stories on this. It's so important, and I'm so disappointed in Frank. He has this reputation as a progressive, yet his actions re the financial sector have been anything but. As one commenter said, "Wake up!"
WAKE UP, IT'S MORNING IN AMERICA, ONLY NOT LIKE YOU THINK!
This is lunacy. We need real reform. Continuing their secret, shadow "investing" will create more of the same and greater economic catastrophe. We must repeal the deregulation that started us on this course to ruin and regulate them properly. Their definition of free market: free to cheat, create fraudulent investments, Ponzi trash and gimmicks, disguising garbage as derivatives, quant funds, credit default swaps, etc.
The only natural conclusion one can draw, when followed by their logic is that once a man goes into business, he becomes a saint, self-regulating and fulfiller of his/her fiduciary roles as defined under the law with utmost objectivity. We see that is false, obviously, in everything from mortgages and massive leverage.
ENOUGH OF THE SMOKESCREEN screen "FREE MARKET" to exempt yourselves from scrutiny and any real financial responsibility! It's a mask to continue making a quick buck so your financial "acumen" (read charlatanism) looks successful, only to reap the ultimate ruin that comes from voodoo investing, so called in my book, because it derives from the voodoo economics of the Reagan Regression. Morning in America is real everybody, only not the way Reagan and the magic of the marketplace magicians promised it. Everybody wake up! Or we will all be speaking Chinese! For more, see my blog, http://www.wrathofmcgrath.com
Bankers receiving billions in bonuses
workers fired
homeowners foreclosed
pension funds busted
state and municipalities broke
dollar crashing
0% return on investment for stockholders in the last 10 years
Rubin, summers, greenspan, Paulson have been paid billions for what?
In 20 years these people have bought the wealthiest nation in the history of the world to financial ruin
Reform what a Joke...
The time for Reforms already passed...
We blew it...
Gave away the Farm, handed it over to the same swindlers that caused this mess...
Especially Geithner and Summers but we now know Paulson too is a liar and a crook..!
Obama blew the best chance we ever had to reform and regulate our corrupt banking system and corrupt banking culture..we blew the level playing field pushed us down to our knees and these swindlers went right back to doing what they had always done...
Way to go Obama...way to go...
Barney Frank has obviously got a horse in this race. I am an executive with a large DoD contractor and have spent many years working with these career politicians. For every Barney Frank "victory" where he pummels some group to great publicity and praise, there is a Barney Frank "compromise" that he doesn't want you to know about. Same goes with all of these career politicos. Everything in D.C. gets done with deals and compromise (altho these are kind words for what they really are..bribes). Congress and Senate votes are not free and you can bet that every yes vote recorded has a deal of some sort behind it.
they may not be on record here, but they will be when it goes to the floor. then we'll know exactly who is in the pocket. they are setting this bill up to fail. People will flud thier offices with calls to stop this from going through. No R will support it because its a D bill and no voter will support it because we are smarter than the reps think we are and we see them just scr. ewing us in advance. the D's were always so good and shoo. ting themselves in the foot. Just another day in the D party.
Debters revolt! If we all make a decision to vote (file chapter 13) against the big banks then we WIN!
This is totally bogus. The American people are entitled to know how their representatives are voting on issues. That's how we determine who we want to represent us. Barney needs to a)be exposed to the glaring lights of the media for doing this and b)cut it out and c)be stripped of his chairmanship since he's protecting the special interests and the folks they've bought off.
Frank's NOT wimping, he's helping to hide just how SOLD OUT they ALL are to the 'bundled' campaign contributions provided by industry lobbyists. Thus are The People betrayed by career politicians, once again.
Barney Frank this is no time
to be a whimp Fight for what you
believe in, and know to be right or step aside
Barney - we need these reforms to be strict and structured.
DO NOT WEAKEN. We are in the hole now, any further nonsense will prove to be disastrous.
YOUR JOB IS TO STOP THE DELUGE - TIGHTEN THOSE RULES - SQUEAKY TIGHT.
Does anybody know what is really going on? I have seen BF on the cable shows a number of times in the past few months and he seemed very committed to lowering the boom and enacting some real regulations with some teeth. Its hard to believe anybody would lie so blatently so close to having to take action on this important topic.
Sad to say, Frank seems to be getting better and better at smoke and mirrors. Lots of public fanfare for a good provision, slip the bad ones through on busy days with no roll call vote. Too bad. I hope more of his fans see what he has become, and let him know how they feel with their campaign contributions and/or their vote.
Let's see the details of this, but, if it's as you describe, Barney has betrayed us and would rank among the greatest of hypocrites in a Congress replete with legendary liars, scoundrels and criminals.
Are there no public servants left in the Congress? Does money rule them all without exception?
Frank is in a slow-motion stumble on this issue. He's a man whose priorities I generally respect, but we all know he's had a history of close collaboration with the industry he regulates. The proper way to deal with that dissonance is to be scrupulous in avoiding the appearance of conflicts of interest. Allowing anything to pass without a roll-call vote, but especially amendments on such an important piece of our economic recovery as banking regulation, is exactly the wrong path to follow.
i agree
well said BF is and was one of the driving reasons behind the sub-prime mess we are in now.
That's funny, I think you're exactly wrong! Barney Frank -- with support from the White House -- is the main reason we're at a point where we might finally succeed in passing good regulation. The problem is not his individual character, but his specific actions. Say all you want about any specific thing he's done, but don't make it about him as a person because that's simply incorrect.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
