Source:
American Banker Thursday, July 16, 2009
WASHINGTON — The bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission was just hours old on Wednesday before divisions surfaced among its members.
In one corner, more conservative members appointed by Republican lawmakers argued Congress should wait for the panel's report — due in December 2010 — before moving ahead with legislation that would revamp financial regulation.
But Phil Angelides, the former California state treasurer whom Democrats tapped to chair the 10-member commission, said lawmakers should not sideline regulatory reform.
"We can work in parallel," he said in an interview. "I don't think it serves the nation's interest to tell everyone to hold up and do nothing. Congress and the administration can move forward on the facts as we know them today."
At the first meeting, Angelides will no doubt get an earful from Peter Wallison, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, one of four commissioners named by the GOP.
"The most important thing is for us to set out what happened and why it happened so that Congress can appropriately legislate," Wallison said in a separate interview. "What I would be concerned about was if Congress attempts to legislate now before the facts are known. … As much as Congress has now asked us to try to tell them and the country about what actually happened here and why we fell into this terrible crisis, I think they ought to wait to proceed."
Congress mandated the commission in the mortgage fraud law enacted in May. It is modeled on the bipartisan commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and is intended to be a thorough study of the underpinnings of the financial crisis.
But observers said this panel may be more partisan than the 9/11 commission...cont'd
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