GOP trying to slip in bank-deregulation in highway bill
Source: Huff Post Politics
The move would jam Democrats on a popular bill.
Zach Carter
Senior Political Economy Reporter, The Huffington Post
WASHINGTON -- House Republicans are angling to slip two pieces of bank deregulation into a major highway funding bill that is expected to pass with broad bipartisan support.
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.
It's not clear whether the House Freedom Caucus would choose to hold Ryan's feet to the fire on bank-friendly legislation, however. The group of hardline conservatives frequently bemoans "crony capitalism," and one of its most prominent members, Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.), consistently votes against Wall Street. The move to weaken the CFPB is deeply unpopular with Democrats. The legislation, authored by Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-Texas), would eliminate the bureau's single director and replace it with a bipartisan panel of commissioners. Since Republicans are generally hostile to financial regulation, the result would be to hamstring the agency with partisan disputes under Democratic presidents, without empowering Democrats to secure tighter rule-making and enforcement under Republican presidents.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/bank-deregulation-highway-bill_5637f0e6e4b079a43c045eeb
]Yes, this is who they are. Republicans would destroy a highway bill to help the banks. If that means highways are not repaired, well...."screw the country, we got to protect the big banks"..in my opinion, a bipartisan panel of commissioners as proposed in paragraph 4, would destroy ................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."
Of course, that is what the Republican Party is now.....A group centered on "ripping off household"...especially middle class and poor households ..This move is not surprising, just arrogance that they would do this when our highways need so much work, and those jobs would help the economy.. They obviously don't give a shit...cause that is who they are...
Faux pas
(14,697 posts)If they can't beat us, they cheat us. It's disgusting squared.
Stuart G
(38,453 posts)All they care about is the "banks" and their money...screw the average consumer..
HassleCat
(6,409 posts)Banks and highways go together. When you go to the bank, you drive on the highway, right? "I've run circles 'round you, logic wise." Might as well revoke the speed limits while they're at it.
Wellstone ruled
(34,661 posts)this thing has been hanging out there for months. Watch for a P R think to hit Bloomberg and CNBC. Probably hit the Fake Business Channel already.
Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)to ensure it passes. But, "D." Or something.
Stuart G
(38,453 posts)Here is another paragraph from the article in Huffington Post that is linked above
"The GOP bill, authored by Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-Mo.), wouldn't just unwind Dodd-Frank's tougher rules on these banks -- it would make it even harder to regulate them than it was during the George W. Bush era."...... Under Luetkemeyer's bill, a panel of regulators would have to undergo a multi-year process with input from several agencies to determine whether a $300 billion bank should be subjected to tougher rules than an $11 billion bank. It would be a significant boon to regional powerhouses, including BB&T, PNC Bank, Capital One, Charles Schwab, SunTrust, American Express, Regions, KeyBank and others, which all are currently subject to tighter regulations.
SunSeeker
(51,745 posts)progree
(10,924 posts)I don't mean in Congress -- they are all upper class -- I'm talking about a lot of their base voters. Who have a significant chunk in the stock market in 401 K's etc. that they are depending on for retirement, but are far below the fraction of the top 1% that actually own or manage the financial institutions. In other words, people basically along for the ride in the stock market, but without the power to run the show.
I have a hefty retirement account, mostly in stocks, and my greatest fear is another unnecessary financial collapse caused by casino gambling by banks. We've had two major collapses of the stock market in just the past 15 years (dot-com crash that resulted in a 49% drop in the S&P 500, and the 2008-2009 crash with an even bigger drop).
Why don't Republicans in the same situation (along for the ride in the stock market) have the same worries, or if they do, how come they seem to have so little influence on Republicans in Congress?
For that matter, what about the middle, lower middle, and upper lower class whites that are the base of the Republican Party? Though they don't have much or anything in the stock market, they surely have suffered during the recessions (and the partial "recoveries" that resulted from too little financial institution regulation?
Angry Dragon
(36,693 posts)saidsimplesimon
(7,888 posts)We can organize and set a date to call our congress critters, both parties, to let them know we are opposed to any deregulation of banks.
We need more oversight over the To Big to Fail fraternity of bankers and Wall Street.
lark
(23,166 posts)Is nothing too low, too traitorous for them to contemplate? They'd let people, perhaps even 100's of people, die from broken bridges unless we let the corporo-criminals have more free reign to ruin the economy and steal all our savings - AGAIN!
Such a vile, hateful group of semi-humans.