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.
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
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
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...
Debters revolt! If we all make a decision to vote (file chapter 13) against the big banks then we WIN!
to be a whimp Fight for what you
believe in, and know to be right or step aside
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.
Are there no public servants left in the Congress? Does money rule them all without exception?