Main Street

The Elizabeth Warren Rap

Making the rounds, complete with miniature horses:

Tags: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Elizabeth Warren, financial reform, Wall Street

Wall Street Reform Passes the Senate

On a vote of 59 to 39, the Senate passed its version of financial regulatory reform last night. Most observers I’ve been reading feel that it’s a stronger bill than originally expected, while not as strong as many would have liked.

The bill next goes to a House-Senate conference committee, where it is to be merged with a version passed last year in the House.

Here’s a sampling from some of the early reporting following the Senate’s action, in no particular order:

McClatchy:

The Senate Thursday night passed the most sweeping changes in government regulation of the nation’s financial institutions since the Great Depression, including strong new consumer and investor protections and provisions that seek to shine a bright light on the dark corners of Wall Street.

In a 59-39 vote, four Republicans joined 53 Democrats and two independents in approving the Restoring American Financial Stability Act of 2010. Two Democrats, Washington’s Maria Cantwell and Wisconsin’s Russ Feingold, as well as 37 Republicans, voted no.

Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, as well as Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Charles Grassley of Iowa voted yes; Democrats Robert Byrd of West Virginia and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who lost in Tuesday’s primary, didn’t vote.

The House of Representatives passed a similar version, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009, six months ago. The two bills must now be reconciled in negotiations between the two chambers, passed anew by each and sent to President Barack Obama for his signature, which is expected by July 4.

“Our goal is not to punish the banks, but to protect the larger economy and the American people,” Obama said Thursday.

[The bill] also would create a new independent entity — called the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection — to write rules for consumer credit products such as mortgages, student loans and credit cards, aimed at preventing predatory lending and creative loans of the sort that got so many homeowners in trouble.

“If you’ve ever applied for a credit card, a student loan, or a mortgage, you know the feeling of signing your name to pages of barely understandable fine print,” Obama said Thursday. “It’s a big step for most families, but one that’s often filled with unnecessary confusion and apprehension. As a result, many Americans are simply duped into hidden fees and loans they just can’t afford by companies that know exactly what they’re doing.”

Yglesias:

The Senate avoided the recent custom of the minority engaging in maximum obstruction to slow down the passage of a law that has the votes to pass, and wound up voting in favor of an overhaul of Wall Street regulation last night: “The vote was 59 to 39, with four Republicans joining the Democratic majority in favor of the bill. Two Democrats opposed the measure, saying it was still not tough enough.”

Next up, the bill needs to be merged with the House version of regulatory reform that passed last summer. In this case the House and Senate bills are different in non-trivial ways on pretty much all the major fronts—resolution authority, prudential regulation, consumer protection, and derivatives—so it’s not totally obvious how this is going to play out. Another interesting issue will be the vote count in the House when the bill comes out again. The House version of the legislation was a classic Obama-era bill that passed by a razor-thin margin with no Republicans in favor and many moderate Democrats against. The Senate bill, by contrast, had four Republican yesses and two nos from the left.

Joan McCarter at Daily Kos:

In a vote of 59-39, the Senate passed the financial reform bill. At the last moment, Wall Street got another win. They convinced Sen. Brownback to pull his car-dealer protection act so that the Merkley-Levin Volker rule amendment would also be withdrawn. Since it had been attached as a second degree amendment to Brownback, it’s fate was linked.

It’s not as strong a bill on the whole as it certainly should have been. But two warriors against Wall Street are philosophical in their view of the bill. Here’s Byron Dorgan and Bernie Sanders, talking to TPM’s Brian Beutler.

“I forced a vote on naked credit default swaps–banning naked credit default swaps,” Dorgan told me after casting in with his party. Dorgan’s amendment was tabled, but he regards the vote on a motion to table as a referendum on the legislation itself. Those 57 senators who voted to table his legislation were, in effect, voting against it.

But ultimately, he simply wasn’t interested in killing it. “This bill is short of what Congress should do, but it moves in the right direction, although it moves less aggressively than I would like to see it move,” Dorgan added. “Unlike some years ago when the issue was a piece of legislation, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, was I think just fundamentally wrong. I was very interested in stopping it. In this case I’m very interested in starting a piece of legislation that is constructively financial reform.”

….

“I think this is a step forward, there’s no question about that,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) told reporters after today’s vote. “I think it brings much greater regulation, I think it brings much greater transparency. But I think, frankly, it is nowhere near as strong as it could be. I think at the end of the day we are going to have to address the need to break up these very very huge financial institutions, which I believe, that if they start teetering in the future they will have to be bailed out, and that’s why you ought to break them up now.”

Dorgan agrees. “As long as our country has financial institutions too big to fail, I think you’re going to have failure,” Dorgan told me. “And I think ultimately the taxpayers will be called upon to bail them out.”

The fact that the Merkley-Levin amendment did not get a vote is a clear set-back for progressive efforts to strengthen the reform bill. It would have given real teeth to the so-called Volcker Rule, inserting specific restrictions on things like risky proprietary trading and hedge fund ownership by commercial banks. The bill approved last night simply empowers regulators to study what those rules might be — at best kicking that particular can down the road.

Tim Fernholz at TAPPED:

After a tense afternoon of votes stretched into the evening, the Senate passed its financial-reform legislation, setting the stage for negotiations with the House to craft a final package that will be voted on once more by both chambers before arriving on President Obama’s desk.

After the Democrats, joined by three Republicans, successfully overcame efforts to block a vote on the bill in the afternoon, 30 hours were allotted before final passage — unless Republicans could be convinced to dispense with the debate and any additional amendments.

Particularly at stake was an amendment from Sam Brownback to exempt auto dealers from consumer regulation and another amendment proposed by Sens. Merkley and Levin to strengthen a measure already in the bill to limit the kinds of risky business banks can engage in.

While the Merkley-Levin amendment could not be voted on post-cloture due to a technicality, in a clever bit of legislative jujitsu, the two attached their amendment to Brownback’s as a second-order amendment, meaning that both would have to be voted on together to enter the bill. Reformers opposed Brownback and supported Merkley-Levin, but could at least see stronger restrictions on Wall Street if Brownback succeeded.

Republicans, however, proved reluctant to force another symbolic vote that would reveal their support of Wall Street. Brownback pulled his amendment, leading to an agreement on how to proceed: After a procedural objection from Republicans that required 60 votes to set aside, voting for final passage began at approximately 8:45. The bill passed 59-39; Democrats Maria Cantwell and Russ Feingold registered their opposition from the left after amendments to strengthen the bill were left to languish, while four Republicans — Chuck Grassley, Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and Scott Brown — crossed the aisle to support the bill. (Two senators, Robert Byrd and Arlen Specter, did not vote.)

Tags: financial reform, Wall Street Reform

Working America Shows Up at the Showdown

Never mind the rain, yesterday Working America was out at the Showdown on K Street:

And this was a really cool float done by another group (not sure who to credit):

Tags: financial reform, Wall Street

K Street Showdown

It’s starting:

Congress is poised to vote on Wall Street reform—the most important to our financial system in decades. We are taking our message “Good Jobs Now! Make Wall Street Pay” to K Street, the power corridor in Washington, D.C., where Big Bank lobbyists plot to kill real financial reform and peddle corporate influence on Capitol Hill.

AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler will lead a large contingent of working families and union staff today, May 17, as we join with our partners from National People’s Action, Move On, SEIU and others to rally and call out the lobbyists for the Big Banks.

Watch it live starting at 11:45:

Tags: financial reform, Wall Street

Keeping the Pressure on Wall Street

One of the many groups at last week’s March on Wall Street was the Coffee Party, which made this video. Check out the strong Working America representation.

You can take action at Not Your ATM.

Tags: financial reform, Wall Street

Talkin’ Wall Street Reform in the Senate

The Senate is set to begin debate tomorrow on numerous amendments to the Wall Street reform bill. Here’s a rundown on some of the latest coverage from the blogs.

At Daily Kos mcjoan writes about several key amendments that are expected, including one from Sherrod Brown (D-OH) and Ted Kaufman (D-DE) to limit bank size and scope:

The author of one of the key amendments, the SAFE Banking Act, says he doesn’t have the votes yet.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said he lacks the votes right now to advance his amendment limiting the size of banks.

Brown held out hope that the measure, which he’s offered along with Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.), could win enough support to pass as the Senate debate moves forward.

“I don’t think we do yet,” Brown told Bloomberg’s “Political Capital” when asked if he has the votes. “I think a week ago we weren’t even close. I think this weekend we’re closer.”

Politico has a lengthy rundown which includes this on amendments expected from Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont:

Sanders is pushing two amendments — one to cap the interest rates offered by credit cards at 15 percent and a second requiring the Federal Reserve to divulge the names of financial institutions that have received low-interest loans.

The latter is being hotly resisted by the Fed itself, which argues that financial institutions need anonymity to take the loans, but the amendment has support from five Democrats and 10 Republicans, including Sens. John McCain, David Vitter, Jim DeMint and Chuck Grassley. The House bill includes a version of it pushed by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas).

Sanders said he is also supporting the Kaufman-Brown amendment. “People are loosely working together. We’re going to fight for each other’s amendments and make sure this bill comes out as strong as it can possibly be.”

And Bloomberg is reporting that Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), who is managing the Wall Street reform bill on the floor as chairman of the Banking Committee, expects Republicans will try to weaken consumer financial protection every which way:

Dodd predicted in an April 30 floor speech that Republicans will bring up “a ton of amendments to try to undermine” the bureau. An agency to inform borrowers is needed because the sale of “bad mortgages” was “where the fires began that nearly consumed our economy,” he said.

Tags: financial reform, Senate amendments, Wall Street Reform

Huge March on Wall Street: “Good Jobs Now!”

Chanting “Good Jobs Now! Make Wall Street Pay!” and “They Got Bailed Out! We Got Left Out!” more than 15,000 union members, unemployed workers, community activists and progressive citizens jammed the streets of Lower Manhattan yesterday to march for good jobs and Wall Street reform.

Before leading the huge crowd in a March on Wall Street AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told the rally that the big banks had crashed the economy, put us 11 million jobs in the hole, and that it’s time they paid to restore American jobs.
(photo at right by Will Fischer)

Working America members, supporters and organizers were on hand. And everywhere you looked there were signs telling Wall Street “I Am Not Your ATM“.

The event marked the single largest jobs rally since the onset of the Great Recession, and capped a week of actions nationwide.

The huge rally heard from speakers including New York unionists, teachers, students and progressive religious leaders — each expressing their outrage that while 15 million Americans are unemployed, and millions more have lost their homes, it’s back to business as usual for the big banks.

NAACP President Benjamin Jealous told the rally:

this is the time to take back America from the Big Banks. He said while money can buy votes, money can’t vote and all the newly registered voters in the 2008 election will make a difference in 2010.

Kim and Jamison were part of a Working America contingent on hand from Philadelphia.

More photos from the Wall Street Showdown:

Tags: financial reform, Good Jobs Now, Make Wall Street Pay, March on Wall Street, Wall Street

Keep Up the Pressure for Wall Street Reform

Yesterday afternoon, as expected, every Republican in the Senate (and Democrat Ben Nelson) voted against beginning public debate of financial reform. But while such votes have killed a lot of bills in recent years, this time Harry Reid is playing hardball:

Last night, after Republicans voted to sustain their filibuster of Wall Street reform legislation, Reid held an open quorum, forcing Republicans to return to the Senate floor, and then set the stage for revotes–to be held today and tomorrow–forcing the GOP to go on the record repeatedly opposing debate on financial reform.

You can help apply the pressure.

This Thursday, April 29, some 10,000 union members, community activists from National People’s Action (NPA) and other groups will march on Wall Street. Our message to the Big Bankers: Americans are angry that their reckless greed made a mess of the economy and destroyed jobs—and it’s time they pay to restore those jobs. If you can’t make it in person, join the more than 8,000 people who have signed up to be taken to the march virtually.

To join the virtual march and demand an end to Wall Street’s reckless practices and insist on real Wall Street reform, click here. We’ll print your name on a sticker that one of the marchers will carry. You can add your personal message to the sign that the marcher will carry in your name. Let the Big Bankers know you’re fed up with their shenanigans and that you want real change. The march and rally, which begin at 4 p.m. EDT, is part of the AFL-CIO’s Good Jobs Now! Make Wall Street Pay mobilization.

Or call in today, and let your senators know we’re counting on them to fight for real reform that:

• Creates an independent agency to protect consumers from predatory lenders;
• Sheds light on the shadow financial system; and
• Puts mandatory limits on bank size and risky behavior.

Many senators can be counted on to do the wrong thing and protect Wall Street, no matter what. Others are persuadable—but they won’t do the right thing and protect our economy from the greed and risky behavior of the banks if we don’t apply pressure. Call your senators today.

Tags: financial reform, Wall Street

Protecting Wall Street

Let’s make no mistake: When Republicans obstruct financial reform legislation, preventing it from even being debated openly on the floor of the Senate for everyone to hear, they are protecting Wall Street from being called to account for its irresponsibility and greed and the damage it has done to the economy as a whole and to millions of individual working people.

That’s just what appears likely to happen later this afternoon, when a vote is scheduled to attempt to break a Republican filibuster not of a Wall Street reform bill but of even talking about it. Instead, Republicans would prefer to keep negotiating secretly for a bill that…does or doesn’t do whatever it is they want.

Senate Republicans are working to finalize their own version of legislation to tighten regulation of the nation’s financial system, and aides said their version could be put forward as a rival to the Democrats’ proposal if a bipartisan deal is not reached before an important procedural vote on Monday afternoon.

Republicans, including Senator Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, have said they would use the procedural vote to block the start of debate on the Democrats’ bill unless the Democrats agree to make substantial changes in it. But in a political climate of public impatience and anger at Wall Street, it was not clear how long the Republicans could hold ranks in delaying the bill.

Matt Yglesias writes:

But it’s time to put up or shut up. If you’re concerned the bill doesn’t address something, then write an amendment to address it. If you think the bill is too tough in some respect, then write an amendment to weaken it. There’s no good reason to insist that everything be done in a secret Shelby-Dodd negotiating process.

Exactly. If they won’t allow the issues to be aired publicly on CSPAN where anyone can see, if they won’t negotiate, point to things in an actual, public bill and say out loud what they want changed and why, it’s because they’re not acting in good faith. Which, surprise, they aren’t.

Tags: financial reform, Wall Street

Fraud

From Americans United for Change — Fraud: Tell Wall Street to Stop Shorting America & Defrauding Reform.

Tags: financial reform, Wall Street