Crossposted from Hillbilly Report.
Well we knew the fight over reform for our financial markets would be joined soon and right on cue the fighting has begun. Many people thought this was the one issue we may all be able to agree on but of course the usual suspects at the behest of big business are rising up to fight even common sense proposals and just seem to want to keep things the way they were and allow another crash if need be. As long as they still get to make no-risk investments and get away scot-free. No risk investments getting bailed out and all is just so nice I would assume.
This faction is led by the most toothlessSenator for Communist China Mitch McConnell. Far from acting in a "bi-partisan" manner McConnell resorting to the same old Republican strategy of just lying about something with a real catchy slogan and hoping it catches on. Unfortunately sometimes it does.
McConnell's strategy seems to just consist of trying to convince the American people that nothing needs to be done to the current system. No new regulations or regulators or anything like that. He just hopes to pretend that the economy did not crash because of course he wants America to forget that the economy was crashed because of policies He and his kindred spirits enacted. Instead of offering ideas of course, McConnell just tried to spread the smear that the bill called for more "bailouts" for the banking industry. It is a shame that a Democrat has to retire before he starts doing what he should have done all along. Thankfully, Dodd fired back quickly at McConnell:
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, D-Ct., delivered a blistering 20-minute speech that included the revelation of a political talking points memo from a Republican strategist that was virtually verbatim to the criticism voiced Tuesday by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
"It's a naked political strategy," thundered a visibly upset Dodd. He held up a leaked memo attributed to GOP strategist Frank Luntz that advises Republican lawmakers to accuse Dodd and other Democrats of perpetuating bailouts for giant banks. The public disliked the bank bailouts, so framing the Democrats' financial overhaul legislation as a "bailout" could win Republicans votes.
"Nothing could be further from the truth. The bill as drafted ends bailouts," Dodd said, describing how regulators would get new powers to dissolve large financial institutions, even healthy ones if their size is deemed to threaten the broader financial system.
http://www.kentucky.com/...
This is one fight I really hope that America will watch. While I prefer the House version to Dodd's I think that this fight will demonstrate the choices to America that they have this fall. We all know that there were serious problems in our financial sector that almost triggered a depression. Republicans offer nothing in solutions to try and keep this from happening again because they are beholden to the huge banking interests. They are just desperately trying to spin it to the American people somehow to keep it the same as it was. Then the party for them continues with no risk or consequences.
Dodd went on to defend his bill and tell what it actually would do if enacted:
Additionally, the Dodd bill would require large institutions to present a plan for how to liquidate their company if necessary.
Both the Senate bill and one the House of Representatives passed in December also would create a fund that large financial firms would have to pay into to cover the costs to dissolve their foundering brethren. The House fund would be $150 billion; the Senate's, $50 billion.
Dodd said that these measures prove that there are no provisions in the legislation for bank bailouts, as McConnell charged and as Luntz had recommended.
"Under our proposal, they will never happen again," Dodd said. He suggested that the false allegation was a strategy to help Wall Street banks hold onto the status quo. "Wall Street special interests needed a way to defend the broken system."
The worst thing that can happen is for our country to let vultures like Mitch McConnell, who got fat crashing our economy and then reaped the only rewards by getting bailed out convince them that nothing should be done to stop it from happening again. These folks have proven they simply cannot be trusted to "regulate themselves" and they have our bailout money to spend in the fight against reform. America actually needs a tougher law than Dodd is proposing but the worst thing we can do is continue the policies that let put us here to begin with.
This is an argument that we as Democrats must make loudly. We need to keep pressing the Republicans and not only let them voice their opposition but express their solutions to the problems that beset our economy in late 2008. The more that rational, free-thinking individuals hear of their solutions the more they will lose ground as people simply remember and see them for what they always are again, bad for America.
I hope we will stand up and fight and stop trying to compromise with men like Mitch McConnell. If anything will benefit the people that live in America and are not millionaires you automatically know that Mitch McConnell will oppose it. If McConnell opposes it 98% of Americans should support it. His ideas caused the problems we now face so we should just fight McConnell and his cronies and ram it down their throats.
Hopefully Dodd has sounded a note that will resonate up and down our party.