Obama Rejects Bipartisan Bank Deal

[kentuck]

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

<snip>
Although Senate Banking Committee Chair Chris Dodd and his sometime Republican ally Richard Shelby continued to make noises on the Sunday talk shows about a possible bipartisan deal, both President Obama and House Financial Services Chairman Barney Frank have personally urged Dodd not to cut a deal with Republicans. I asked Frank point blank why Dodd would want such a deal, and he said--on the record--"I have no idea, but both President Obama and I have urged him not to."

This is a welcome sign that Obama realizes that public opinion is moving in the direction of tougher banking reform, and that he learned from the health debate that bipartisan compromise on key reform issues is a snare and a delusion. Kudos to Chairman Frank and to the President.

<snip>
Bottom line: If the Senate Democratic Leadership can resist the snake oil of a bipartisan deal and if Obama personally works the phones and takes control of his own administration, the bill will probably get stronger as it works its way through Congress. This is the right kind of bipartisanship--a progressive bill so clearly demanded by public opinion that many Republicans don't dare to oppose it.
....

A little history is reassuring. For all of his personal resolve, it took Franklin Roosevelt seven years and several pieces of landmark legislation to complete the New Deal structure of financial regulation that kept Wall Street well harnessed until the late 1970s - including the Securities Act of 1933, the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the Public Utility Holding Act of 1935, ending with the Investment Company Act of 1940. Even in that golden age of reform, Wall Street wasn't tamed in a day.

If the Democrats don't extinguish the momentum with a premature bipartisan deal, public understanding and indignation are still building. Regulatory agencies are beginning to do their jobs, and Democrats are starting to sound like a progressive party. It's about time.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-kuttner/obama-rejects-bipartisan_b_551132.html
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[Tarheel_Dem]

1. I don't see how they can possibly win this. Whether rightly or wrongly, people...

hate Wall St.

[kentuck]

2. Republicans are bluffing.

Hoping to get the Democrats to agree to a watered-down version of reform. Democrats should hold their feet to the fire. They will bend and break on this issue.

[Tarheel_Dem]

3. I certainly hope so. My fear is that they'll threaten to filibuster, and Harry..

Reid won't actually make them do it. If they make the threat, they should have to stand on the floor, and read the phone book, for all Americans to see.