Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition of 200 groups ranging from AARP to the Service Employees International Union, has decided to back Rep. Marcy Kaptur's bill, H.R. 3995, the “Financial Crisis of 2008 Criminal Investigation and Prosecution Act of 2009.”
The bill, introduced last November, and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary and the Committee on Financial Services, would authorize the hiring of up to 1000 additional FBI agents skilled in forensic accounting and other matters crucial to uncovering fraud and other crimes allegedly committed by members of the financial services industry that nearly brought down the world economy. Extra funding would also be spent on more prosecutors.
After the collapse of the Savings and Loan industry in the 1980s and early 1990s, the FBI built a team that included strike forces in many cities and more than 1000 agents whose work eventually led to more than 1800 prosecutions, with 1072 S&L officials imprisoned. And they weren't all small-fry. William K. Black eloquently tells that story in his 2005 book, The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One.
So far, in this crisis, in which far more billions were lost and more taxpayer money expended rescuing the system, only one guy has gone to prison, Bernie Madoff. And he's a special case. A few others have gotten stern looks or a ruler across the knuckles.
The financial crisis bill will enter a more intense phase after the spring recess ends this month, according Kaptur press officer Steve Fought, who told Daily Kos that the Congresswoman "is convinced that there was fraud committed and [other] crimes committed, and it is important to get to the bottom of that rather than to say it happened" and let it go. "If previous behavior goes unpunished, there is no incentive not to repeat ... The people who [nearly] brought down the economy should be brought to account."
It's not that the Department of Justice is not doing anything, Fought said. But Kaptur's "contention all along has been that there simply weren't enough agents in forensics and other areas to get to the bottom of it." The bill can be thought of as providing a "surge."
A surge in co-sponsors would no doubt get the bill a higher profile and give it a chance to get a floor vote. With only 26 co-sponsors signed on so far, plenty of Congresspeople would benefit from a little phone nudge to their offices.