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A Sneak Peek at the Week

An eventful week it should be, to say the least.

I’m reminded of these famous lines by the great Walter Huston in the film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre:

“Hey, you fellas, how ’bout some beans?… Want some beans?… Goin’ through some mighty rough country tomorrow – ya better have some beans.”

A quick look at just some of what’s coming up.

Senate Banking Committee chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) will unveil his plan for financial regulatory reform today, following months of delays in pursuit of Republican support that never materialized (again). Key issues include whether the plan will sufficiently tighten regulations on derivatives trading, really make “too-big-to-fail” banks a thing of the past, and whether the regulatory prohibition on commercial banks’ acting as investment banks or hedge funds (the so-called “Volcker Rule”) will be re-instituted.

But the biggest question is what will become of the Obama administration’s proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA), will it emerge as an independent agency or be contained within the Federal Reserve in a weaker, more advisory role. The latter is something many of the Federal Reserve’s current and former consumer protection advisers actually oppose.

Meanwhile, at long last the final stages of passing a significant health care reform plan appear to be approaching this week in Congress. It will have to overcome the massive insurance industry-led lobbying effort trying to stop it. A variety of votes in both the House and the Senate will be needed to pass health care reform with the crucial improvements to the Senate bill agreed to by the White House and Democratic Congressional leaders. But one thing is clear, and that is that the big student loan reform plan (SAFRA) will be included in the House and Senate reconciliation fix for health care and will need only 50 votes in the Senate. Now that would be a Win-Win.

On the all-important jobs front, the initially-bipartisan-then-not bill to provide employers with tax credits for hiring returns to the Senate for final action, where some are talking about pulling an all-nighter. A much larger bill to continue the extensions of current unemployment insurance and COBRA subsidies through the end of 2010 passed the Senate last week but because it differs from an earlier version passed by the House, the measure still awaits further action. And that can’t come too soon for the 11 million Americans now receiving unemployment benefits, as the current jobless aid extensions are still set to expire March 31.

With the introduction last week of the Local Jobs for America Act, a large-scale plan to support up to a million jobs, efforts begin this week to build on early support, enlist more House co-sponsors, and seek support from Senate Democrats. This bill will be one key component of the growing national movement for jobs, spearheaded this week by the AFL-CIO’s campaign for Good Jobs – Make Wall Street Pay in coordination with Working America’s “Wall Street: I Am Not Your ATM” campaign.

So let’s get rolling! And hey, what about those beans?

Tags: financial reform, Health Care, Jobs, unemployment insurance