The Republican notion of a well regulated economy is one in which Banksters are free to scam, insurance companies are free to rake it in without having to pay it out, and big energy is free to pollute at will with the poor and middle classes suffering the effects and paying for the clean up. Even when regulation is already the law, Republicans are fighting like hell to sabotage any regulation whatsoever on corporate criminals.
House Republicans on the Appropriations Committee yesterday released [GOP delinked] their 2013 budget for the nation’s financial market regulators. Under the GOP plan, both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission would see their budgets finalized at levels far below President Obama’s request, with the CFTC even seeing a real reduction in dollars from its budget last year:
The House Appropriations Committee’s fiscal 2013 spending package would slash the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s annual budget by about $25 million to $180.4 million.
The Securities and Exchange Commission, meanwhile, would see its 2013 budget rise by about $50 million, to $1.37 billion from $1.32 billion, according to the Republicans’ proposal.
Both budgets are well below the targets that President Barack Obama had proposed for the SEC and CFTC, with both agencies finalizing numerous new regulations required by the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street oversight law.
Republicans have been making a concerted effort to undermine the Dodd-Frank financial reform law by denying regulators the funds needed to implement it. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has even said, “the less we fund those agencies, the better America will be.”… [emphasis original]
Inserted from <Think Progress>
Bear in mind that the budgets of regulatory agencies were thoroughly gutted during the Bush Regime, and since then, Republicans have blocked all Democratic attempts to both fund them and appoint officials to staff them. Nevertheless, Republicans, along with some highly misinformed people on the left, blame Obama for the failure of these emasculated agencies to regulate effectively. In this area, as in all other aspects of our ship of state, Republicans are busy drilling holes below the water line.
10 Responses to “Republicans Sabotaging Financial Reform”
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“Bear in mind that the budgets of regulatory agencies were thoroughly gutted during the Bush Regime, and since then, Republicans have blocked all Democratic attempts to both fund them and appoint officials to staff them. ”
Vote them all out this election…
Amen, Richard!
Said well TC—
Thanks, Phyllis.
The same people are going after the EPA here in Kentucky,”those coal miners don’t need that horrible bunch, our politicians say, because the coal companies are doing right and providing jobs.” I grit my teeth every time Ihear this nonsense being spouted by one or another of our senators or congressmen here. Meanwhile, our streams are polluted and our air is polluted and we are having record floods.
…and you didn’t even mention the miners Big Coal keeps killing.
I can still hear Elizabeth Warren talking in one of her interviews — a history of financial reform from the market failure of 1929 through the depression right up to the repeal of Glass-Stegall. What happened in 1929 is happening again, perhaps not quite as bad, but it is an indicatiion that reform and regulation are sorely needed. JP Morgan Chase just had a BIG boondoggle — $3 billion initially, but the amount is thought to be higher — yet these same banksters want less regulation! And they have their political whores, the Republican/Teabaggers to do their bidding!
Regulations are needed to ensure that the common good is maintained. Banksters and the Republican/Teabaggers are nothing more than thieves in 3 piece suits.
I remember that too!
Of course they don’t want financial regulations! How would they get rich if their puppet-masters were regulated?
Bingo!