The path to passage of the financial "reform" bill is fraught with characteristic obstacles provided by the usual suspects. The bankers don't want to be regulated and the BD/GOP wants whatever the bankers want. Now that the two bills, Barney Frank's House bill and Chris Dodd's Senate bill, can be put side-by-side and compared, it won't take long to figure out what the sticking point's going to be. Pretty much the same sticking point that always stops such bills.
Enforcement.
Looking at the key provisions together makes it pretty clear.
In each case but one the difference between them revolves around how much power regulators would have to actually enforce the law.
Dodd's bill would create a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, as in the House version, but his proposal would house it within the Federal Reserve rather than create a stand-alone agency. This agency would write rules to govern a host of consumer credit products, ranging from mortgages and payday loans to credit cards.
Significantly, this independent agency, whose leader would be selected by the president and confirmed by the Senate, would also get enforcement powers. Republicans, banks and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce oppose that.
Now there's a shock.
But according to the NYT's Sewall Chan (who is turning into a real reporter so you'd better read him now before he gets canned), the BD/GOP is so frightened of the anger being directed against the banksters that they're being uncharacteristically subdued, threatening only to bring a flood of amendments to the floor rather than attack it head on as they are doing with healthcare "reform".
Senate Republicans were muted in their response, saying they would introduce amendments to press their case on areas of disagreement, including the powers of a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that would set up inside the Fed.
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Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the Banking Committee, warned against trying to rush the bill through committee next week, as Mr. Dodd has said he intends to do. "Given the magnitude, complexity and importance of this task, it is critical that we have sufficient time for a thorough review," he said.
Yeah, sure. Say, 19 or 20 years.
The bankers are being uncharacteristically quiet as well, probably for the same reason. Their lobbyists have been working the BD caucus steadily but without fanfare and what their pitch boils down to is this:
We don't much care what regulations you pass as long as they're not enforcable and they don't cost us anything.
Wanna bet that's how the bill ends up?
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