Wall Street reform gets better, but isn't done yet

Yglesias calls it the "incredible growing FinReg bill", and he's right. Buoyed by some good ol' fashioned populist anger at Wall Street, some Democrats have been successfully pushing hard to strengthen the bill. While Republicans have been doing the best to drag their feet to slow the process down, they aren't by any means trying to kill this bill.

Just this week the Sanders' Fed audit passed, unanimously, and today a very good amendment by Jeff Merkley and Amy Klobuchar made it in:

Today, an amendment put forth by Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley and Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar to the Wall Street reform bill passed the Senate by a vote of 63-36. The amendment will protect homeowners by prohibiting mortgage lenders and loan originators from receiving hidden payments when they steer homeowners into high-cost loans and will create strong underwriting standards to ensure borrowers have the ability to repay their loans.

Unfortunately, it's not all good news coming out of the Democrats on this bill. Delware's Tom Carper is introducing amendment 3949, that would strips existing regulations that allow states to enforce stronger financial regulations than those passed by the federal government. It would actually weaken existing regulations, making its potential passage worse than the status quo. What make it particulary dangerous is it's potential to pass--Democratic Senators Evan Bayh, Tim Johnson, and Mark Warner are cosponsoring it.