WALL STREET WINS
SENATE SEALS GIVEAWAY
12/13/14

WASHINGTON -- The Senate agreed on Saturday night to pass the $1.1 trillion government funding bill that will keep Uncle Sam in business through next September, while handing lucrative Christmas presents to Wall Street and political parties.

...Forced to be in session, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) used the opportunity to push ahead with a slew of President Barack Obama’s nominations, which Reid wants to pass before the Senate ends the session for the year.

....The spending bill provides funding through the end of the fiscal year for all government operations except the Department of Homeland Security, which only gets money to last through February. Republicans insisted on that shorter time frame because they intend to use the deadline to try to defund Obama’s immigration action. But Cruz suggested Friday night that House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) might not actually follow through.

One controversial provision in the spending bill weakens the Dodd-Frank Act's restrictions on banks that want to trade in the same sorts of risky derivatives that sparked the financial meltdown of 2008, and allows the banks to back their bets with taxpayer-backed insurance. The bill also dramatically increases the amounts that wealthy donors can give to the major political parties. Some Democrats have said that the two measures together amount to letting wealthy Wall Street employees earn more money, which they can then use to reward lawmakers who backed the spending deal.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/13/cromnibus-senate_n_6321144.html