Will Democrats Stand Fast on Financial Reform?

It’s a given that Republicans top priority is making sure millionaires get the tax cut on income over $250,000.  But since we have already beaten that issue to death, at least until the duck starts to quack, lets move to their number two priority.  They claim it’s repealing Obamacare.  However, in making that claim, they are doing what Republicans do best: lying.  Criminal banksters did not withdraw support from Democrats and spend $millions in secret contributions to put Republicans in office for nothing.  Now they want payback and Republicans will do everything within their power to gibe them what they want.  They are going after financial reform.

Big banks opposed much of the Democratic agenda these past two years in Congress, and they could find a lot to like in a Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

Already, the GOP has a lengthy, bank-friendly to-do list.

The coming term should bring scores of oversight hearings into the implementation of new rules governing financial institutions. There will be scuffles over control of a new consumer financial protection agency. And lawmakers will debate how to restructure the quasi-governmental mortgage agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — which retain a major role in the current housing crisis.

All are issues that Bank of America, Wells Fargo and large other banking institutions will pay close attention to.

"We had been disappointed with a number of legislative outcomes with the past Congress, and so we look forward to better outcomes with this Congress," said Peter Garuccio, a spokesman for the American Bankers Association in Washington.

Garuccio said banks expect a corrections bill to peel back some of the financial regulations passed into law this year. Among them would be a repeal of the so-called Durbin Amendment, which cut debit-card fees for retailers. Banks say it cost them billions.

"That’s a huge issue," Garuccio said.

Consumer groups worry that Republicans on the Financial Services Committee will rebel against almost every issue that Democrats tackled in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, as the financial overhaul was called.

"We want to make sure that the industry that caused this mess doesn’t derail this comprehensive, common-sense approach to making sure this doesn’t happen again," said Kathleen Day, a spokeswoman for the Center for Responsible Lending, based in Durham, N.C. "The banking industry is out there already saying this is really bad."

Most of the direct legislative action affecting banks concluded earlier this year with the Dodd-Frank Act, the broadest revamp of financial regulation since the Great Depression. Now, regulators are facing the challenge of implementing the complex legislation and working with increasingly complex and global financial markets.

Banks already have begun lobbying the administration.

"We are making our views known and especially responding to questions from federal regulators about the implications of the rules they are writing or how they could work," said Scott Silvestri, a Bank of America spokesman.

Meanwhile, House Republicans expect to hold hearings and conduct oversight into the law’s implementation, said Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., a member of both the financial services and oversight committees… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <McClatchy DC>

Here’s the key.  With the House under Republican control, they still lack the ability to actually do anything beyond making noise as long as Democrats stand fast.  But we have real reason for concern there.  Harry Reid needs to be replaced, because of his propensity to believe Republican lies that they negotiate in good faith, hump Republican legs for votes, whining, rolling over, and playing dead.  In the administration, Tim Geithner will be Republicans’ best ally, behind the scenes.

I’m not going to convict Democrats, before they have a chance to commit the crime, but I’d be lying, if I did not point out the potential.  Now we know what to watch and understand the need to make our voices heard.