House approves sweeping regulatory reform package

[NJmaverick]

Source: Washington Post

More than a year after the near-collapse of Wall Street plunged the economy into crisis, the House on Friday approved the most sweeping overhaul of the nation's financial regulatory system since the Great Depression.

The 223 to 202 vote, largely along party lines, marked a milestone in the Obama administration's efforts to rein in the abuses that contributed to the current crisis and to revamp the current patchwork of regulators to prevent similar failures in the future. The president has called financial reform one of his top priorities, alongside health care and climate change.

The 1,279-page bill creates a new federal agency dedicated to consumer protection, establishes a council of regulators to police the financial landscape for systemic risks, initiates oversight of the vast derivatives market and gives the government power to wind down large, troubled firms whose collapse could endanger the entire financial system. The legislation also gives shareholders an advisory say on executive compensation, increases transparency of credit ratings agencies and sets aside billions in government funds to aid unemployed homeowners.

House Republicans were nearly unanimous in their opposition to the bill, claiming that it amounts to an egregious overreach of government powers and fails to address the problems that led to the crisis. They argue that it would create unnecessary new layers of bureaucracy, stifle innovation, increase costs to consumers and fails to rid the nation of "too big to fail" financial firms.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/11/AR2009121102754.html?hpid=topnews

---

Now this is progress!

[frylock]

1. good news!

:thumbsup:

[pampango]

32. Here are some details about the bill. Sounds pretty good, though getting it through the Senate

will be tough.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30497.html

"Friday’s 223 to 202 vote was a major victory for the Obama administration, which has made Wall Street reform a policy and political imperative, second only to health care on its agenda. But like so much of the White House’s other legislative agenda, this too, was a partisan win, as not a single Republican voted for the bill."

"President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats have put considerable emphasis on the so-called Consumer Financial Protection Agency that the legislation would create. The provision was the object of some of the most intense lobbying of the entire package up until the very end. Hated by the financial industry and big business, the CFPA became the cause célèbre of liberals and consumer advocates. Ahead of the vote, House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who crafted much of the legislation with the Treasury and shepherded through the House, described the package as the most significant increase of financial regulation since Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal."

"The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Financial Services Roundtable and other industry groups lobbied members to support Minnick’s (ID-D) amendment; the Chamber – which has run a multimillion-dollar campaign against the CFPA — made it a key vote. In the end, Minnick’s amendment was defeated, 223-208, with 33 Democrats supporting it and eight Democrats not voting. CFPA’s opponents still embraced the close vote as a sign of progress, and certainly the fate of the provision is cloudy when it comes to the more conservative Senate."

"To many experts, the real meat of the package is the so-called dissolution authority it would grant federal regulators to put failing massive financial institutions to death without the need of taxpayer bailouts. Administration officials have said that the absence of such authority is what forced them to seek taxpayer money to deal with firms such as Lehman Brothers or the Federal Reserve’s emergency lending powers to rescue mega-insurer AIG."

[azmouse]

2. Obama sure is doing nothing!

:hi:

[NJmaverick]

4. LOL!

:hi:

[kirby]

7. Well, the bill is a joke... n/t

[NJmaverick]

8. care to explain why you believe that?

[tridim]

20. It's just a reflex. Ignore it.

[kirby]

29. Watered down...

Just look at the most basic item - shareholder say... they would not even pass that. Instead they make it a non-binding 'advisory' vote. In other words, even if the shareholders vote to cap executive pay or force their company to go green, the company can still ignore it. Nothing has changed.

Real-estate brokers, accountants, appraisers were all removed from oversight. These are a large segment of the unregulated people who got us into the housing bubble to being with.

Language that would require a basic no-frills checking accounts / credit cards was removed.

And just wait until it winds its way through the Senate! I cant wait to see what emerges from there!

[NJmaverick]

39. There are a lot of positive measures in this bill

are you going to shoot down the whole thing, because of what is missing?

[kirby]

42. No, but I want to see what emerges from the Senate...

Considering how they have butchered health care reform, I would be surprised if anything decent emerges.

[NJmaverick]

47. I wouldn't be surprised if it's very similar to the House measure

Healthcare is a more difficult sell, then preventing another economic meltdown is.

[kirby]

50. Follow the money...

Consider that the Financial Services sector of our economy has grown to be about 30% of our economy. Health Care is only 16%. (of GDP). So which will have the bigger money interests behind it? Considering Financial Services is more difficult to 'explain', it is much easier for the changes to be watered down with little notice.

[Botany]

3. House Republicans were nearly unanimous in their opposition to the bill ...

The party of no.

[livetohike]

5. They have no solutions. It should be easy to run against

them in 2010. After all, who isn't for regulation after what happened in the past year? The Republicans have let their failed ideology take away their common sense.

[NJmaverick]

6. Never underestimate the enemy

Go back and look about how Republicans were crowing that the Democrats were dead after the 2004 election

[Botany]

11. They will get slaughtered @ the polls

Supporting bankers, big oil, health insurance companies, and wall street over the
real needs of Americans ..... give me an incumbent republican congressperson or
senator and I could run an ad campaign against them that would strip away much
of their support even in the reddist of red states.

The republican running for Governor in Ohio (John Kasich) is linked to Lehman Brothers
that should sell well in depressed Ohio.

[mvd]

9. Here is what Repukes really mean by their spin

create unnecessary new layers of bureaucracy = no, we can't have banks actually held accountable!

stifle innovation = hey, maybe companies like AIG won't be bailed out next time!

increase costs to consumers = oh no, maybe bonuses will be $10 million less!

and fails to rid the nation of "too big to fail" financial firms = this is typical Repuke what is up is really down talk

[Botany]

14. You forgot

concern over the deficit = except for money borrowed from China to run a war in Iraq

[mvd]

17. Yep!

That, too. :hi:

[Botany]

27. Democrats get in trouble when they don't act but Republicans get in trouble .

.... when they do act.

[quakerboy]

66. When is that a snippit of?

[Zorra]

22. Naturally. Now they're going to have to use another scam to steal granma's

retirement money for their bankster masters.

[pampango]

37. Not "nearly" unanimous 175-0 opposed. And Progressive Caucus voted 70-3 in favor of the bill

with 5 abstentions. There were some defection among Blue Dog dems, but not enough to kill the bill.

[Tippy]

10. ROLL CALL VOTES

U.S. House Roll Call Votes

< http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/index.asp >

[NJmaverick]

13. Thanks for the helpful link

although I wish the site would make it easier to figure out who the 27 Dems who voted against the measure was.

[mikelgb]

33. Notable Votes:

Kucinich: No
Kaptur: No
Grayson: Aye
Paul:No
Frank/Leadership:Aye

[Davis_X_Machina]

12. Kucinich, nay.

Add that to his vote on ACES.

Shoulder to shoulder with progressives like Bart Stupak and Ike Skelton.

[NJmaverick]

15. I thought Kucinich was all about the common person

[Davis_X_Machina]

16. It depends....

...does that common person own a grandstand?

[NJmaverick]

18. I have often wondered about that

thanks for the clarification. :hi:

[Roland99]

19. He was and is. Perhaps he realized this bill is a dressed-up pile of shit

Obama's Big Sellout
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31234647/obamas_big_sellout/print

[NJmaverick]

25. Why do you make this claim? What is wrong with this bill?

and if it's a "dressed-up pile of shit" why were the Repukes totally opposed to it?

[Roland99]

31. They'd be against a National Day of Prayer if it came from the Dems

Just read the article. I know it's long, but worth it.

[NJmaverick]

40. I read it, not my kind of article. I had to read to the 6th paragraph before the

first fact was mentioned. The wait wasn't even worth it, as the fact was how much was spent on the bailouts.

I prefer something like this:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/

All fact, and I can make my own opinions based on those facts.

[laughingliberal]

46. Here's one of the things wrong with the bill:

Rep. Ed Perlmutter pushed and pushed and pushed for an amendment to exempt some of the country's biggest banks from supervision by a new consumer-protection agency.

The Colorado Democrat's office says it was to create "a more targeted approach" that goes after the biggest of the big banks. But the financial regulation bill being debated in the House already limits its examination authority to the 2 percent of the nation's banks with more than $10 billion in assets.

Perlmutter's amendment failed twice, most recently on Thursday morning, when it was nixed by the House Rules Committee. But the third time was the charm as Perlmutter and Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank engaged in a colloquy Thursday night -- a pre-scripted dialogue on the House floor -- so he could get the spirit of his loophole in the bill without actually having to have a vote.

It's now enshrined forever in the Congressional Record as Congress's intent -- a loophole for some of the nation's biggest banks to evade additional scrutiny of their consumer practices in the wake of the biggest economic crisis in 80 years, brought about in large measure because of the lack of adequate consumer protections.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/11/house-democrat-ed-permlut_n_387064.html

As for Republican opposition, my take is the Republicans would prefer no reform. It seems the Democrats are passing just enough reform to give them some cover. Better than nothing? Maybe, but not much. Still letting the worst offenders in the industry carry on as before

[pampango]

48. You don't give the progressives in the House much credit. They voted 70-3 in favor of

"just enough reform to give them some cover". Barney Frank, Lynn Woolsey, Raúl M. Grijalva, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Keith Ellison, Elijah Cummings, Ed Markey, George Miller, Henry Waxman, Robert Wexler, and Alan Grayson among many others. If you think they are all tools of the finance industry, you must really be miserable today.

If the bill had passed with a lot of repub and Blue Dog support, I would be more suspicious than with unanimous republican opposition and almost unanimous progressive support. Could it have been better? Sure. Almost every law ever passed could have been better.

[laughingliberal]

49. Didn't say it should have been defeated. Just saying I wish the loophole had not been there and,

certainly, am disappointed it was a Democrat who worked for it. I would like to see more Democrats standing up more for consumers and the working class and less for the bankers and Wall Street tycoons.

I am unhappy with the overall direction of the party, yes. I, basically, see the Republicans as being completely over a cliff and the Democrats, for the most part, as about where the Republicans were in the 80's. It is a little disconcerting to read back on some of the policies of Republicans in the past and realize their domestic platforms were more liberal than some of our Democratic representatives today.

edited for grammar

[gcomeau]

23. If there was a dictionary entry...

...for "the perfect is the enemy of the good" it would be nothing but a picture of Dennis. I admire the guy but he's not exactly what I would call practical.

There was undoubtedly a line on page 567, paragraph 13, subsection 42 which didn't meet his standards which means the entire bill must of course be opposed.

[mvd]

21. I didn't mind his ACES vote, and like Kucinich

Would like to hear his reasoning on this, though.

[Davis_X_Machina]

24. We're all talking about him. What more reason could you want? n/t

[mvd]

26. I'm afraid we just don't agree on Kuch

I remain a fan.

[NJmaverick]

28. If you find out his reasoning, please post it

I would like to know what it is.

[mvd]

30. I am thinking he doesn't think it goes far enough

And I agree that it should be stronger. Hey, I support strict bonus limits and nationalizing the banks. But there's got to be some good in this bill. I'll post if I hear anything.

It is a little disappointing to see him with the Repukes so often lately.

[NJmaverick]

41. I am not a big fan of that sort of thing. If the bill does good and no harm

you should vote for it, in my opinion. I don't like the idea of voting no, just because it doesn't do enough.

[mvd]

43. I think there's room for statements, personally

I just hope Dennis doesn't do this all the time.

[NJmaverick]

44. Given the numbers, he could make a statement

however there isn't room for everyone to make a statement. So is it fair to the people doing the grunt work of voting the bill into law?

[mvd]

45. I think so, because not everyone feels the same way about a bill

They shouldn't be made to go along just to go along. Let there be some that keep fighting for the best.

[mikelgb]

34. Yet little mention of the other 26.

So that must be it.

[Davis_X_Machina]

36. It's the same ususal band of nuts, crooks, and drones...

....Skelton, Davis (TN), the Terrible Texas Twins, Cuellar and Ortiz....

What are Dennis and Marge Kaptur doing riding in that clown car?

[mvd]

38. Dennis is right on the issues, in my opinion

And I think is it ok as a representative to vote based on his ideals, as long as it doesn't make a bill that has some progress get defeated. My general rule, though, is that widespread Repuke opposition = the bill has good in it.

[elmerdem]

35. Fret not ye hopeful lugs

it will be watered down and horse traded for some shitty, Goldman sachs, citi, AIG lovin' bipartisan, joe liebermanin' bend over American main street compromise in the senate. There is no way Ben Nelson, Blanch Lincoln, Evan Bayh or any of our stalwart Dem Senators will let this travesty to the American banking system become law. I know them. They will fight for the little guy! Do I need one of those little sarcasmic thingamabobs? Okay here you go!:sarcasm: :sarcasm: :sarcasm:

[Grateful for Hope]

51. kick

[Capn Sunshine]

52. Massive financial reform passes House

Source: LA Times.com

Reporting from Washington - More than a year after the financial crisis devastated the economy and triggered massive taxpayer bailouts, the House narrowly approved the most sweeping overhaul of financial regulations since the Great Depression in hopes of preventing a similar catastrophe.
The sprawling measure would grant the government broad new authority to break up large financial firms if their size poses a major risk to the economy, as well as to seize and dismantle such firms if they teeter near bankruptcy. A new $150-billion fund, paid for by the financial industry, would cover the costs of any government takeovers.

The nearly 1,300-page bill also would create a powerful new agency to protect consumers in the financial marketplace. It would outlaw many predatory and abusive mortgage practices and for the first time regulate hedge funds and private pools of capital. It also would give shareholders a nonbinding vote on executive compensation.And the measure would make a host of other major changes to federal oversight of the financial system, including imposing new requirements on credit rating agencies and the trading of complex securities known as derivatives.

The House passed the legislation 223-202 on Friday without a single Republican vote after three days of often-divisive debate that featured finger-pointing over who was to blame for the financial crisis and the bailouts it spawned.House Democrats said the new regulations would reverse years of lax oversight under President Bush that let risky Wall Street behavior shatter the economy.
"We are sending a clear message to Wall Street: The party is over," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) "Never again will reckless behavior on the part of a few threaten fiscal stability of our people." President Obama has made the financial regulatory overhaul one of his top priorities and has prodded Congress to approve the changes by year's end.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-financial-reform12-2009dec12,0,612945.story

---

[Wilms]

53. I didn't realize a majority can pass a bill without a single vote from the minority. n/t

[napi21]

54. Dems have the majority in both houses of congress. If they could

stick together in the Senate, they could pass anything they damn well wanted! Unfortunately, the Dem party tent is too wide to all agree on everything!

[Capn Sunshine]

55. too many whores in the Senate

that should be obvious to all by now

[notesdev]

56. Some questions and observations

1) If it's real reform, how the hell did it pass through a chamber of our Congress?

2) What's the difference between this new fund and the FDIC, which is supposed to do the same thing (and went broke because it didn't follow the law)?

3) Are small, responsible institutions going to be paying for the sins of the larger ones?

4) Regarding this line: "Never again will reckless behavior on the part of a few threaten fiscal stability of our people."

a) Could Nancy have said that with a straight face without Botox-induced facial paralysis?
b) Does this mean they're actually going to do something serious about the Federal Reserve?
c) How about that plan to raise the debt ceiling by another $2 trillion for this year?

[midnight]

57. I hope there are no loop holes that allow for bailouts without congressional approval...

[salguine]

63. Are you kidding? They wouldn't pass it UNLESS it was riddled with loopholes. Haven't

you been watching how they do EVERYTHING?

[SandWalker1984]

58. Reform or future bailouts at taxpayer expense without Congressional approval?

If even 1/2 of what Mark Taibbi's written in his latest Rolling Stone article is in this legislation, we're in deep trouble.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/31234647/obamas_big_sellout


See part of his article below:


Democrats pushed the move as politically uncontroversial, claiming that the bill will force Wall Street to pay for any future bailouts and "doesn't use taxpayer money." In reality, that was complete bullshit. The way the bill was written, the FDIC would basically borrow money from the Treasury — i.e., from ordinary taxpayers — to bail out any of the nation's two dozen or so largest financial companies that the president deems in need of government assistance. After the bailout is executed, the president would then levy a tax on financial firms with assets of more than $10 billion to repay the Treasury within 60 months — unless, that is, the president decides he doesn't want to! "They can wait indefinitely to repay," says Rep. Brad Sherman of California, who dubbed the early version of the bill "TARP on steroids."

The new bailout authority also mandated that future bailouts would not include an exchange of equity "in any form" — meaning that taxpayers would get nothing in return for underwriting Wall Street's mistakes. Even more outrageous, it specifically prohibited Congress from rejecting tax giveaways to Wall Street, as it did last year, by removing all congressional oversight of future bailouts. In fact, the resolution authority proposed by Frank was such a slurpingly obvious blow job of Wall Street that it provoked a revolt among his own committee members, with junior Democrats waging a spirited fight that restored congressional oversight to future bailouts, requires equity for taxpayer money and caps assistance to troubled firms at $150 billion. Another amendment to force companies with more than $50 billion in assets to pay into a rainy-day fund for bailouts passed by a resounding vote of 52 to 17 — with the "Nays" all coming from Frank and other senior Democrats loyal to the administration.

Even as amended, however, resolution authority still has the potential to be truly revolutionary legislation. The Senate version still grants the president unlimited power over equity-free bailouts, and the amended House bill still institutionalizes a system of taxpayer support for the 20 to 25 biggest banks in the country. It would essentially grant economic immortality to those top few megafirms, who will continually gobble up greater and greater slices of market share as money becomes cheaper and cheaper for them to borrow (after all, who wouldn't lend to a company permanently backstopped by the federal government?).


THIS is REFORM?????

[defendandprotect]

59. Thanks for the info -- !!

Wow . . .!!

[Psephos]

60. They ought to try a little financial reform of the deficit. Effin' hypocrites.

Banksters and Congsters. Take the whole lot of them out behind the garage and shoot them.

[Stumbler]

61. ...only to die on the floor of the Senate

Next!!!

[kysrsoze]

65. Yeah, probably so.

[natrat]

62. that was so incredibly msm, obviously there is a huge scam in this somewhere

post something with some substance and get back to us,k

[pampango]

67. Can't say it's not a scam, but if it is, they sure fooled 70 out of 73 progressive legislators and

ALL of the republicans who you would think would love to vote for scam financial market regulation.

[No Elephants]

68. Why do you assume they would have had to have been fooled?

Maybe they knew the bill was seriously flawed, but thought it was better than nothing.

Or, maybe they did not even read it. Hell, many of them did not even read the Iraq War and WOT Resolutions. Or, so they claimed later.

Seems to me, this bill contemplates future bailouts at taxpayer expense, without requiring the biggest players to contribute. Why not ask why so many Democrats voted to exempt some of the biggest banks?

[kysrsoze]

64. "without a single Republican vote"

Doesn't that say it all. There are some really sucky Dems out there, but not one Republican in the House had the balls to vote to at least attempt to fix the things that lead to the worst financial situation I've seen in my 40 years of life.

I think Charlie Crist and Lindsey Graham are the only ones left with a conscience. I was pleasantly shocked to see Graham's stance on the current Senate climate legislation.

I gotta say, I cannot believe they had the balls to actually limit bailout exec pay. That's been a LONG time coming, and I hope it spills over into other industries. These jokers, even the good ones, are just not worth that much. It's been a long party, run by Wall Street and corporate heads, at everyone else's expense. Hopefully it's over now.

[No Elephants]

69. No, it doesn't say it all. It says nothing at all.

Most Republicans have been going against everything the Democrats want to do. Their votes have to do with their strategy as a minority Party in Congress. It says nothing about whether a bill is good or bad.