TBTF Banks’ Power Creates Pathetic Congressional Farce
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Congressional negotiators briefly reopened the conference proceedings on a sweeping financial regulatory bill on Tuesday
after Senate Republicans who had supported an earlier version of the measure threatened to block final approval
unless Democrats removed a proposed tax on big banks and hedge funds.
The need to reopen negotiations was deeply embarrassing for Democrats and represented a price they had paid for rushing to complete the legislation at the request of President Obama.
Congressional negotiators briefly reopened the conference proceedings on a sweeping financial regulatory bill on Tuesday
after Senate Republicans who had supported an earlier version of the measure threatened to block final approval
unless Democrats removed a proposed tax on big banks and hedge funds.
The need to reopen negotiations was deeply embarrassing for Democrats and represented a price they had paid for rushing to complete the legislation at the request of President Obama.
The proposed tax on banks was one of the provisions included as Democrats completed the bill shortly before daybreak on Friday, as noted in this article in the New York Times.
But the Democrats were forced to change the bill after Senator Scott Brown, the Massachusetts Republican who had supported the Senate bill,
said he would oppose the final version because it contained the tax on banks.
Other senators who had supported the original Senate version also said they were unhappy with the levy on financial institutions.
Senate Democrats cannot advance the measure without the cooperation of at least some Republicans,
and the death on Monday of Senator Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, who had supported the bill, further complicated the legislative math.
With the changes, Democrats said they were confident they would be able to muster the needed votes in the Senate, at least on the procedural motion to end debate.
The vote on final adoption of the conference report requires only a simple majority.
Heather Booth, director of Americans for Financial Reform, said she believed
Mr. Brown’s reasons for opposing the bank fees missed the point of overhauling the regulatory system.
“Not passing this bill will cost taxpayers more,” Ms. Booth said. “It increases the risk in the economy over all.”
She said her organization believed the biggest, or so called Too-Big-To-Fail, also known as TBTF, banks —
approximately 30 with assets of more than $50 billion that would be subject to the assessments —
had fanned the opposition.
