It Passed!!

Financial Reform was a hard fight.  Now that we have won, what did we get?

It’s done. The Senate this afternoon, by a vote of 60-39 passed the final version of Wall Street reform legislation — the exact same version the House passed two weeks ago, which will now go the White House for a signature. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said that the President plans to sign the bill next week.

The development, though expected for days, represents a major achievement for President Obama and congressional Democrats — their first landmark bill since health care. And this time it’s actually popular…

…As the 60th vote, Brown harnessed his extraordinary leverage in the final stages of the legislative process, and used it to demand carve-outs for major Massachusetts financial firms and delay final passage of the bill by weeks. Before the July 4th recess, Democrats were forced to take the unusual step of reconvening their financial reform conference committee to remove a bank tax, after Brown and Collins threatened to pull their support. (That tax was replaced with new revenue raisers, including one that brings the 2008 bailout bill to an early end.)

The yearlong debate over reform was marked, as so many initiatives have been, by ultimately ineffective stabs at bipartisan cooperation, which gave way after months to the Democrats’ ultimate strategy of plucking off enough moderate Republicans to pass the bill.

Despite the internal dissent among Democrats, the bill accomplishes some of the party’s biggest reform goals. It creates a resolution authority for the federal government to ease failed firms through the liquidation process — an authority former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson says would have helped him and the country a great deal during the financial crisis of 2008.

It will force big firms to move their risky derivatives-trading businesses into external affiliates where they’ll receive no federal protections — a provision authored during primary season by conservative Democrat Blanche Lincoln, and preserved in large part because her primary challenger, Arkansas Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter, gave her a run for her money and forced her to tack left.

It creates a new consumer financial protection bureau, housed inside the Federal Reserve, which will regulate financial products and protect consumers from predatory financial practices. It ends — or will soon end — major conflicts of interest on Wall Street, and strictly limits the extent to which big banks can make risky trades with their profits. And, in a huge coup for progressive and conservative populists, it allows a thorough audit of the Federal Reserve’s non-monetary policy operations, including the actions it took during the dark days of the crisis… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <TPM>

The Republican response was completely predictable: NO!

First on the list for Boehner, should he regain control of the House, is repealing the entirety of the Affordable Care Act. Second, the not-yet-signed-into-law financial reform bill:

"I think it ought to be repealed," said House Minority Leader John Boehner, in response to a question from TPMDC, at his weekly press conference this morning.

One of his top lieutenants, Republican Conference Chair Mike Pence agrees. "We hope [the Senate vote] falters so we can start over," Pence told TPMDC yesterday. "I think the reason you’re not hearing talk about efforts to repeal the permanent bailout authority is because the bill hasn’t passed yet."

Of course, there’s no such thing as a permanent bailout authority. There never has been. There is a resolution fund, paid by the large financial institutions themselves if needed, so that, you know, taxpayers won’t have to foot that bill again. But Boehner and Pence have never let a little thing like the truth get in their way… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Daily Kos>

This has to be hard on the Republicans.  Their major constituency, second only to racist Teabagger extremists, just took a major hit.

Keith Olbermann covered this with economist Dean Baker:

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In the end, this bill does not go far enough.  However, it achieves more than I expected, especially given the extreme efforts of the banking lobby and the Republican Party in opposition.  We have more to do, but we can chalk this one up in the win column.  It may be the straw that saved the donkey’s back.