Weekly White House Address for President Obama for this week has him blasting Republicans and Financial Lobbyists for trying to kill Regulatory Reform.
Obama blasts Republicans and Financial Lobbyists
I would say that he has taken his sweet time, but I think we've already heard that. Suffice to say it isn't great but with the 60 minutes interview out Sunday where Obama is calling out the Bankers, I think we may have hit a turning point in the road.
Just last week, Republican leaders in the House summoned more than 100 key lobbyists for the financial industry to a "pep rally," and urged them to redouble their efforts to block meaningful financial reform. Not that they needed the encouragement. These industry lobbyists have already spent more than $300 million on lobbying the debate this year.
The special interests and their agents in Congress claim that reforms like the Consumer Financial Protection Agency will stifle consumer choice and that updated rules and oversight will frustrate innovation in the financial markets. But Americans don’t choose to be victimized by mysterious fees, changing terms, and pages and pages of fine print. And while innovation should be encouraged, risky schemes that threaten our entire economy should not.
From the 60 Minutes Interview:
President Obama took aim at "fat cats bankers" in an interview airing this Sunday on CBS's "60 Minutes," slamming the financial services sector for failing to learn the lessons of the recession.
"I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street," Obama told Steve Kroft, who interviewed him earlier this week.
The president expressed concern that banks are returning bailout money to the government simply so they can pay out massive end-of-year bonuses without restraint.
"I think that in some cases, [to be able to pay bonuses] was the motivation," he said. "Which I think tells me that the people on Wall Street still don’t get it...They’re still puzzled why it is that people are mad at the banks. Well, let’s see. You guys are drawing down $10, 20 million bonuses after America went through the worst economic year...in decades and you guys caused the problem."
I think he would be smart to tie Republicans and the Financial Industry together. Combined, their popularity is probably around 25%. Assuming he were to do this, it would make things easier on the midterms and probably better overall.