Wall Street and their Purchased Representatives

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http://www.nationofchange.org/wall-street-and-their-purchased-representatives-1336827827


How is it that two years after passage of the much acclaimed Dodd-Frank Wall Street reform (four years after economic crash), Too Big To Fail (TBTF) institutions are not only bigger, but also too big to regulate and too big to jail? Don’t be fooled into believing that because a law has been passed by Congress and signed by the president, it has actually been implemented.

Keep in mind that Congress controls the funding for the federal regulators who are charged with carrying out the reform — Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Securities Exchange Commission. What would possess members of Congress, who bragged about banning banks from gambling with taxpayer money, to force regulators to strategically surrender significant rules by threatening budget cuts?

Answer: their livelihoods. Yes, the very livelihood of a member of Congress is indeed in the hands of the TBTF financial institutions. What better motivation is there than your career and financial future of your family? The financial sector is far and away the largest source of campaign contributions to federal candidates and parties, with insurance companies, securities and investment firms, real estate interests, and commercial banks providing the bulk of that money. In this 2012 election cycle alone, this industry has already donated $122 million to campaigns of members of Congress.

In addition to campaign contributions, this industry spends billions of dollars to lobby Congress. The tally since the financial collapse, 2009 – Q1 of 2012, for this industry is $1.5 billion. Do you think that over a billion dollars can influence members of Congress to threaten regulatory agencies with budget cuts? Of course the agencies are rewriting and redrafting and rehashing the most significant reform regulations until they are void of reform completely.