With their mojo back, Senate Democrats move to tame Wall Street
Now that the Democrats have a bit of swagger back, Senate Democrats have picked up the pace on Wall Street reform — another issue that definitely needs to be addressed. Yesterday, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) passed a financial overhaul bill out of committee on a straight party-line vote.
Meanwhile, Treasury Sec. Tim Geithner warned bankers and other Wall Street maestros to stop fighting so hard against financial reform. That, too, is a reflection of the Democrats’ increased confidence. They are reminding bankers that can pass signifiant legislation without GOP support. From the WSJ:
The 13-10 vote in the Senate Banking Committee comes as Republicans and business groups rethink their strategy about how to shape or derail the financial bill, which some of them argue would reduce credit and potentially cost U.S. jobs. Some Republicans have faulted the White House for pressuring congressional Democrats to push forward without a bipartisan deal.
“Have things been about as dysfunctional as they could be as far as things coming out of committee?” asked Sen. Bob Corker (R. Tenn.). “Yes, and certainly there’s plenty of fault to go around.”
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, in some of his most forceful comments to date, warned on Monday policymakers and the public to “be careful whose voice you listen to” in the debate over new financial rules. His comments, in a speech at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, appear squarely aimed at Wall Street executives and other business leaders who have warned about the unintended consequences of the bill.
“Listen less to those whose judgments brought us this crisis,” he said Monday. “Listen less to those who told us all they were the masters of noble financial innovation and sophisticated risk management. Listen less to those who complain about the burdens of living with smarter regulation or who oppose having to pay a fee for the costs of this or future crises.”
Mr. Geithner’s pitch came a day after the White House cleared a huge hurdle by marshaling its overhaul of the health-care system through the House of Representatives. With that debate largely settled, much of Washington’s focus is expected to shift to reworking financial-market rules. In an illustration of the White House’s growing presence in the process, close to 10 administration officials sat through the Senate panel vote.
Democrats and White House officials, emboldened by the belief they have public support for efforts to rewrite financial rules, have intensified their push in recent weeks. They have stepped up their warnings about the consequences of inaction, with Mr. Geithner saying Monday that “risk will build up again … and future governments will have to act again to socialize private losses in the interest of preventing catastrophic damage.”
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383 comments Add your comment
Reality
March 23rd, 2010
11:28 am
@schrutebeets: Why is it that when the government enacts any sort legislation, it is suddenly a “government take over?”
When the government said that all vehicles must stop at a stop sign, did you call it a “government take over of the roads?”
When the government said that a public fire department must be created to fight fires for all, did you call it a “government take over of fire destruction?”
GROW UP!
Reality
March 23rd, 2010
11:29 am
@ Keep up the good fight
AMEN! I’m with you 100%!
Tommy Maddox
March 23rd, 2010
11:30 am
How is it that Reality and Granny Gozilla had folks who gave them those names? Now, where’s my check for free?
“You cannot solve joblessness by simply stating that “those lazy people must just get a job.” You need to create some action to create those jobs.” That’s why we got the Stimulus Bill!! It worked really well!!!
Reality
March 23rd, 2010
11:32 am
@schutebeets 11:27 am
““Yes, finanacial reform is needed. No, I haven’t read the words of any proposal to do so. But, it is obvious that reform is needed.”
Then why are you supporting it?
It’s the same logic that passed Obamacare and, for that matter, elected Obama.”
OMG. Seriously? I clearly stated the answer to your question in my last sentence. Can you not read?
BUT, IT IS OBVIOUS THAT (FINANCIAL) REFORM IS NEEDED.
That is why I support it.
Micar
March 23rd, 2010
11:33 am
No government, That is like no rules of the road, no system to protect property rights, no system to protect personal rights, etc. Everybody is just on their own to form tribes to protect themselves. Oh wait, the minute you form a tribe, you need a chief either through conquest or election. Now a chief seems like government. Where is Yogi Berra when you need him? De Ja Vu all over again.
T-Town
March 23rd, 2010
11:36 am
Micar
“what would your ideal society of 300+ million people look like with no government.”
I never said we should have no government. But if you want to make the rules, have a dog in the fight. When one says “do as I say, not as I do,” I don’t want them making the rules for me.
Lincoln's Ghost (on acid).
March 23rd, 2010
11:36 am
The democrat’s bill was conceived in legerdemain and dedicated to the preposterous notion of parity and equality. We are now enveloped in a great uncivil war of words, testing whether any legislation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.
The democrats have shown that either party can deem it necessary to wrest procedural protocol from the legislative battlefield and pass unwarranted and unwanted agenda. The electorate, long ignorant of congressional manners, is finally awakened by conservative cries against the way democrats elbowed untabled motions through liberty’s loopholes. (burp)
But in a larger sense it doesn’t serve freedom’s cause to shove the people aside, and slip bills by the people.
For the people are the cause.
The world will little note nor long remember what we blog here. It is for us, as a united people, to reconcile emotion, and slyly resolve to save our due berth of freedom and stay a parish of worth.
Micar
March 23rd, 2010
11:39 am
still waiting on that input on how Wall Street represents anything even remotely resembling a free market. I know it is a fee market, but where is the free market which controls the tycoons?
Micar
March 23rd, 2010
11:43 am
The tycoons should be regulated and the minute they lie to steal a buck, should be duck walked off to the jail house. We put starving people in jail for stealing a loaf of bread but countenance the tycoon in the theft of the whole bakery.
Independent
March 23rd, 2010
11:43 am
Oh puh..leeze Cynthia, that’s not mojo, that’s the barrel of a gun saying you work for us now.
Sick&Tired
March 23rd, 2010
11:44 am
Whenever you risk the productiveness of a business and run it into the grown, you are in need of serious regulations and reform. Without regulations most businesses would run a muck (wachovia would continue to money launder) and that billioniare fraudster would continue to dupe people.
In todays society no one wants to lose money. So they will continue to deceive their customers and in some cases; we would die.
So bring on financial reform, then immigration reform and so long healthcare reform (make changes on a need to basis).
Vinny
March 23rd, 2010
11:44 am
If the government wants to regulate banks, then tax paying Americans should be able to regulate the health habits of people that are on the government dole for their health insurance.
They should only be allowed to buy low-fat, healthy food and should be required to exercise vigorously for at least one hour a day in order to maintain their welfare payment.
No more Micky-D’s
No more potato chips
No more pork ribs
No more french fries
They should all have to be monitored on a daily basis as to what their food intake is and how much they are excercising. A few hundred thousand IRS agents should be able to handle it.
Babyboomer
March 23rd, 2010
11:45 am
Danneskjold. If the country is broke, what does it matter if Iran has a nuke.
Micar
March 23rd, 2010
11:48 am
Hey Vinny, are you saying that folks who eat potato chips are the same as the folks who steal potato chips?
Micar
March 23rd, 2010
11:49 am
Always amazes me when we are talking about trying to pull the reins in on the rich and powerful, how some folks just can’t resist making the argument about the poor and the weak.
schrutebeets
March 23rd, 2010
11:50 am
Reality:
I’ll give this one more try. I get it that you believe financial reform is needed. However, it’s not clear to me that you get that all financial reform initiatives aren’t the same. I asked you to explain why you are supporting this particular financial reform initiative when, by your own admission, you know nothing about it. Step up.
Justin Kase
March 23rd, 2010
11:59 am
Do all those who are rich and powerful need to be reined in, or just maybe a few? If that is the case why didn’t we rein in Ted Kennedy? What about Tiger?
Micar
March 23rd, 2010
12:00 pm
everybody give up on the free market request about Wall Street? So if it is not a free market that regulates itself, and tycoons use the game to steal other peoples money, what is so bad about making some rules to try and make the game a little fairer? I mean all you folks that advocate for doing nothing would step foot inside a gambling hall where the casino guy could just make up the rules to suit himself, Would you?
Keep up the good fight!
March 23rd, 2010
12:00 pm
schrutebeets, try the Consumer Financial Protection Agency and giving it rule making power to write and enforce to protect consumers. One agency instead of a mix of agencies and special interests. It needs to be strong consumer orientated agency.
Russ555
March 23rd, 2010
12:00 pm
Noody wants government to take over wall street. But they do need regulating. We need someone watching out for our interest. Rules, laws, regulations, inspections, audits, and controls. Bankers and wall street financiers do not self regulate.
Micar
March 23rd, 2010
12:01 pm
Kennedy is dead, and he never made it to President and Tiger is disgraced for the time being. Seems to me that they got reined in pretty good.
Babyboomer
March 23rd, 2010
12:02 pm
Schrutebeets. You need to leave God out of this. All credibility is lost when you claim that you know what God has blessed. If this country was so steeped in “judeo-christian values”, the evils of the 1800s and 1900s would have never happened. If you think God blessed those evils, that says a lot about you. If the 1800s and 1900s didn’t do this country in, what rot would do it in!
Micar
March 23rd, 2010
12:03 pm
Well its Hi Ho, Hi Ho, off to work I go. Good day everyone.
Justin Kase
March 23rd, 2010
12:07 pm
Wellllll, there you have it. Regulations: No tycoon can be president, he/she must be killed or disgraced. Let’s move on to the job’s bill.
Keep up the good fight!
March 23rd, 2010
12:10 pm
hey Vinny…sure….let’s regulate the companies that fail to disclose the calories in their food, the transfats and other unhealthy additives, let’s figure out why the government provides tax benefits and support to industry like the meat industry that makes its cheaper to eat a “hamburger” than to eat healthy. Let’s take away those supports or give the same support to the healthy food companies. Let’s quit blaming every fat person for being “fat” based on a single reason…they are lazy. Is a 18 month old overweight baby “lazy”. There are many reasons that people are fat and overweight. But in your simplistic world, the nuances of cause and effect of so “simple” and the “answers” so simple that they are meaningless.
How about a qualification test that says before you can post a comment, you must have used a brain to understand the issues and the discussion and that if you dont have something to add that is useful, ya just sit down and learn?
Blue
March 23rd, 2010
12:15 pm
Yeah…we’ll see how their “mojo” looks at the polls. Four words to remember; “Massachusetts elected a REPUBLICAN”. You reap what you sow…and jamming this down the collective throats when it is obvious that the vast majority did NOT want THIS VERSION (don’t hand me this crap about Republicans don’t want healthcare reform just because they couldn’t tolerate some of the things in THIS health care reform) is going to lead to huge losses at election time.
Keep up the good fight!
March 23rd, 2010
12:21 pm
blue…..52% of americans are either for healthcare reform or believe that it does not go far enough. 43% are opposed. So the “vast majority” that you are counting on to support your “fox points’ of “jamming it down your throat” in a year long process by a 60 votes and then by a majority in the House and to use reconciliation which requires a majority vote is what democracy is all about. We’ll see how motivated everyone is in November but so far all the predictions that this bill will never pass have been simply wrong. Mass. was a special election and a poorly run campaign and of course even Brown denies he owes anything to the tea groups.
Betsy
March 23rd, 2010
12:27 pm
Poor choice of words. I don’t want representatives with “mojo.” I want representatives with ethics, honesty, humility, knowledge of the constitution, awareness of their constituency, and a pride in their country’s liberties and strengths. Ms Tucker: bah!
Blue
March 23rd, 2010
12:34 pm
Keep up the good fight; again, THIS VERSION (all caps like the first one to try to KEEP people like you from twisting the words…which still didn’t work). I never said (nor am I in lockstep with FOX; in fact, I can’t stand Hannity or Rush) that the majority of Americans are opposed to healthcare in general…as you stated. Quit twisting words. And as for Brown? It used to be that no matter WHAT campaign…that state was untouchable. But hey…anything you need to tell yourself to delude yourself into believing that the MA election was just an anomaly…whatever helps you sleep at night.
Jack
March 23rd, 2010
12:45 pm
The Democrats are going to chase producers & capital out of this country.
Independent
March 23rd, 2010
12:50 pm
Betsy, you’re dead on with that. Leaders lead by example with ethics, honesty, humility, knowledge of the constitution, awareness of their constituency, and a pride in their country’s liberties and strengths. Mojo is typically reserved for dictators, tyrants, skalawags, snake oil saleman, crooks and criminals.
Granny Godzilla
March 23rd, 2010
12:51 pm
Blue
I gotta’ go with Keep up the good fight on that one…
The Mass election did send a message….but not the message as interpreted by the right wing pundits.
“” a new Washington Post/Kaiser/Harvard poll undermines this assertion. The poll suggests that while the election was a “protest of the Washington process,” it was not a rejection of progressive policy. Only 11 percent of voters, including 19 percent of Brown voters, want Brown to “stop the Democratic agenda:
- 70 percent of voters think Brown should work with Democrats on health care reform, including 48 percent of Brown voters.
- 52 percent of voters were enthusiastic/satisfied with Obama administration policies.
- 44 percent of voters believe “the country as a whole” would be better off with health care reform, but 23 percent believe Massachusetts would be better off.
- 68 percent of voters, including 51 percent of Brown voters approve of Massachusetts’ health care reform.
- 58 percent of all voters, including 37 percent of Brown voters, felt “dissatisfied/angry” with “the policies offered by the Republicans in Congress.”
A different poll, from Rasmussen Reports, cast doubt on the notion that Brown voters were primarily motivated by opposition to health care reform. The poll found that 52 percent of Brown voters said health care was their top issue, while an even greater percentage of people who voted for state Attorney General Martha Coakley (D) — 63 percent — placed it first.
From TPM
Sick&Tired
March 23rd, 2010
12:51 pm
“I want representatives with ethics, honesty, humility, knowledge of the constitution, awareness of their constituency, and a pride in their country’s liberties and strengths.”
Betsy – you want find any of that in the Republican party or in the tea partiers.
Sick&Tired
March 23rd, 2010
12:52 pm
So long JACK.
Dan
March 23rd, 2010
12:55 pm
Tame Wall Street??
Who is going to tame the government?
Scooter (the Original)
March 23rd, 2010
12:55 pm
It only goes to show how little Democrats care about allowing the private sector to create the jobs people want. Democrats work to establish centralized control over the economy inch by inch and they will not waste this crisis. That’s why their stimulus measures dole money out in the form of grants, the government controls the creation of work, not sustainable jobs.
It’s all about power and control, they just wrap it in security until Americans one day realize their liberties have been eroded.
Bill
March 23rd, 2010
1:00 pm
This is what the Repubs had to offer us: The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act
Justin Kase
March 23rd, 2010
1:01 pm
A new study came out today stating that 93.75% of the stats included in them are made up. A new poll came out an hour later supporting this finding 63% to 46.999%. The other .001% had no opinion. .
Chris
March 23rd, 2010
1:05 pm
I wonder if Geithner has done his taxes yet…
Granny Godzilla
March 23rd, 2010
1:09 pm
Justin Kase (cute new name, is that the7th or 8th today)
ever see the movie Apartment for Peggy?
You sound just like Peggy…..
Justin Kase
March 23rd, 2010
1:13 pm
No, same one I’ve had for the last 56 years. Is Granny Godzilla your God given name?
Tax Target
March 23rd, 2010
1:13 pm
So, remind me — including the following, what part of this ObamaCare redistribution of wealth is supposed to be good for us???
The mandate that all Americans buy health insurance represents a fundamental change in the relationship between individuals and the federal government in the United States. According to the Congressional Budget Office, this is the first time in the history of the country that the federal government has ever ordered American citizens to buy any good or service.
Bill Campbell
March 23rd, 2010
1:15 pm
Obama will change America back to the plantation times! Instead of a slave owner…it will be the government! Obama will feed us, pay our bills, provide healthcare and punish us when he feels it is needed! Change you can believe in!!!
Acer706
March 23rd, 2010
1:16 pm
Reality…
I was in a rush and had a few mintues to compile a post. Sorry for the confusion…
Simply, the questions to Dems is can they move forward on other policies post-healthcare reform is put to law. They take no time to rattle off tid-bits like “decrease deficit by 100Billion in the first 10 years and now Republicans do not want to decrease the debt.” They go on and on…
This statement is true. However, the first 4yrs we fund this reform with no action and continue for the next 6yrs. So we pay for 10yrs of coverage, but only recieve 6yrs. Spooky huh?
Then the new administration coming in 2016 (if two terms) imediately has fines to those who do not choose to be covered hiking from $300 to $600 to be paid to the Gov’t.
Many will opt to just pay the fine due to the fact that the bill will allow uncovered to simply enroll for coverage when they need medical care and pay the same amount that is set across the board by Gov’t.
An entire industry has just been crushed by Gov’t, and the practice of providing care freely is now ILLEGAL.
If you don’t like insurance companies, then dont buy the coverage. Understand that medical costs are issued by GOVERNMENT ALREADY!!!!! You are charged based on the price offered by Medicare.
And now, Government forcing a company to provide it’s resources for goods and services set by the very same Government is similar to a mob tatic. Any such practice is ILLEGAL for you and I.
We USED to have a choice to choose. Now we don’t.
Keep up the good fight!
March 23rd, 2010
1:17 pm
Blue..so what is THIS VERSION of the bill a reference to. You mean what is now the law or what is in the reconciliation bill. And which study are you referring to when you reference the “vast majority”.
Tax target…there is no requirement that anyone buy insurance. There is no “order.” SO let’s quit the lies that have started already. If you dont buy health insurance, you pay a tax penalty. Not so dissimilar to say, if you buy a house, you get a credit, if you dont, you pay more tax….or 1000’s of others credits, tax penalties and more. And of course by the time this part is implemented, we may have a public option!
Justin Kase
March 23rd, 2010
1:18 pm
Enter your comments here
Dave2
March 23rd, 2010
1:18 pm
Then it will be Immigration reform, then “Cap and Trade”, then Gun Ownership, then…. everything is on the table for the government to take over, except figuring out how to effectively create jobs. Seems like this has been tried before, didn’t work then – won’t work now. Guess we’re going to have to forget the part about “The land of the Free and the home of the Brave.” As we soon will be neither.
Pat Phelps
March 23rd, 2010
1:18 pm
someone please point out in the Constitution where it says it is the governments business what any CEO is paid.
Granny Godzilla
March 23rd, 2010
1:18 pm
Justin Kase
A. I don’t believe it. B. My parents named me.
Justin Kase
March 23rd, 2010
1:20 pm
I see someone has either spoofed my name, or mother forgot to tell me I have a brother.