GOP Goes Short Against Main Street!

I trust you already know that the GOP successfully filibustered financial reform.

This may be the single biggest lie in modern American history: "Most Republicans want a bill," said Sen. Richard Shelby, "but they want a substantive bill." We’ve criticized the Democrats plenty of times on the issue of financial reform, and the Dodd bill isn’t perfect. But this wasn’t a yea-or-nay vote about a bill. It was a vote to decide whether Senators would even be permitted to debate the bill. That difference means everything.

The GOP has now gone on record officially as saying it wants to block the Senate from even discussing a financial reform bill. They don’t want to let the American people see and hear a debate on this topic from their Senators. When it comes to financial reform, they don’t want the democratic process to take place at all.

Richard Shelby has received $789,489 in campaign contributions from the securities and investment community over the last five years, along with $430,352 from lobbyists, $306,700 from commercial banks, $239,600 from finance and credit card companies, and $151,300 from miscellaneous finance companies.

R. Shelby, R-Alabama. Price of a vote: $1,917,441. (That’s the amount we know about, anyway.)

He had help, of course, from a unified Republican Party. Even Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky, who we praised when he voted for Blanche Lincoln’s derivatives bill, joined in the effort to short-circuit the open democratic process. So did a lone Democrat, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, who was reportedly angry because a provision benefiting Nebraskan Warren Buffett was removed from the bill.

The bill contains many measures that Republicans say they want. As Sen. Shelby said, they claim to want something substantive. Normally a bill is finalized through a process of public debate — at least that’s what we were taught in civics class. But 41 Senators are on record as saying they don’t want a public debate about this bill. They don’t want to introduce amendments or debate the merits of the policies that are in it today. Their long-range strategy is no doubt to paralyze the Senate until Democrats are forced to accept back-room deals that will kill an already dangerously weakened bill. That’s a great way to kill reform without leaving any fingerprints… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Huffington Post>

We expect that from Republicans, but Ben Nelson (DINO-NE) should be thrown out of the party.

Why did Ben Nelson join his Republican colleagues in voting against the motion to proceed on Wall Street reform? Probably because of this:

Senate Democrats agreed Monday to kill a provision from their derivatives bill pushed by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc., a change one analyst predicted could force the Nebraska company to set aside up to $8 billion.

The Senate Agriculture Committee inserted language into its derivatives bill last week at the request of Sen. Ben Nelson (D., Neb.) that would have exempted any existing derivatives contracts from new collateral requirements—the money set aside to cover potential losses.

Ben Nelson apparently forgot the immense damage his "Cornhusker Kickback" did in the last big debate, feeding the backroom deals narrative for the opposition. He went for another one… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Daily Kos>

Not surprisingly, President Obama was not happy with the vote.

“I am deeply disappointed that Senate Republicans voted in a block against allowing a public debate on Wall Street reform to begin. Some of these Senators may believe that this obstruction is a good political strategy, and others may see delay as an opportunity to take this debate behind closed doors, where financial industry lobbyists can water down reform or kill it altogether. But the American people can’t afford that. A lack of consumer protections and a lack of accountability on Wall Street nearly brought our economy to its knees, and helped cause the pain that has left millions of Americans without jobs and without homes. The reform that both parties have been working on for a year would prevent a crisis like this from happening again, and I urge the Senate to get back to work and put the interests of the country ahead of party.”

Inserted from <White House>

Because of concessions already made to Wall Street’s GOP lackeys, this bill is already too bipartisan.  Keith Olbermann and Sherrod Brown clarify the issues quite well.

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Although we lost the vote we should count this as a win for our side.  Today Goldman Sachs executives will be testifying.  They will lie, claiming they did not defraud investors, even though their email proves that they did.  Let the GOP try to defend taking the side of Lloyd Blankfein.  There’s a great menu at the Senate hearings today: GOP Pig, spitted on their own lies.