She's not going to let this happen without a fight.
In the opening round of the
spending fights that will plague the remainder of the congressional session, House Republicans are using the transportation funding bill—must-pass legislation that expires November 20—to try to
gut financial reform, and slip in a few goodies for big banks.
According to a source familiar with discussions, Republicans are trying to remove tighter regulations that were imposed on banks with at least $50 billion in assets after the 2008 financial crisis. They also are aiming to weaken the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—a brainchild of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), which has worked to prevent big banks, payday lenders and other financial firms from ripping off households.
The GOP doesn't need Democratic votes to pass the broader highway bill—it has a wide majority in the House. But while securing federal highway funding is a top Democratic priority, controversial riders like the bank deregulation items may prompt a veto from President Barack Obama that would be impossible to override without Democratic aid. The riders could also serve as a potential test of new House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and his willingness to use major legislation to ram through conservative priorities.
Republicans want to get rid of the director of the CFPB, and replace that position with a board of bipartisan commissioners, with the intention of making it as
dysfunctional and useless as the Federal Elections Commission. Because this one really effective agency—which has succeeded wildly in its first few years of existence,
needs to prove to Wall Street and big business that he's down with them. He also wants to show the maniacs in his conference that he will be willing to have big ideological fights (particularly since he
let the cat out of the bag on that whole Planned Parenthood defunding kabuki). Here's his first test.
He'll have plenty of opportunities, though, because getting this highway bill done is just the beginning of the spending fights that will consume Congress in the next few months.
