Collusion won’t help them come November
As soon as tomorrow, Mitch McConnell could take up a bill that would drastically deregulate almost 30 of the 40 biggest banks in the country -- and while progressive champions like Elizabeth Warren have been fighting it, a number of Senate Democrats look ready to go along.
Is the first paragraph of an email I received from Democracy for America. So I decided to check it out and found an article on The New Republic site, where I then found the link for the tweet in photo, from Rootstrikers, and a bit about the bill.
A deregulatory bill, S.2155, introduced by Republican Senator Mike Crapo of Idaho, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, proposes a major rollbackof the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act. Dubbed The Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act,
Now I don’t think that Dodd-Frank is the best legislation for reigning in big banks, I do think that weakening it is the wrong way to go (ie Crapo!), as does Rootstrikers, an anti-corruption group.
Many progressive activists, led by the anti-corruption organization Rootstrikers, have taken to calling the Democratic co-sponsors the #bailoutcaucus. Nine of the twelve Democrats supporting the deregulatory measure count the financial industry as either their biggest or second-biggest donor, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission data listed by The Center for Responsive Politics.
Democrats supporting the bill have picked sprinkles off of this Crapo cupcake to defend their support. Read the article to see lame tap dancing. Yes the cupcake has sprinkles, I did mention that, and these Democrats are are picking their favorites in order to justify shoving the rest of the Crapo cupcake down our collective throats.
Americans for Finacial Reform had this to say:
AFP (sic) also accuses the bill of rolling back certain mortgage-lending protections and weakening the Volcker Rule—a centerpiece of Dodd-Frank that prevents banks from using their own money to trade in certain higher-risk, speculative securities. The purpose of the Volcker Rule was to reduce the industry’s exposure to the highly leveraged derivative instruments that played a large role in the 2008 market crash. The rule, in essence, blocks additional sources of revenue and imposes some compliance costs, creating tighter margins, so the industry has longed harbored an antipathy towards it, despite continued overall profits.
No financial piece is truly complete without a quote from Paul Krugman:
Still, plenty of other progressive economists like Paul Krugman, pointing to 75 straight months of job growth under Obama, have argued there is “zero evidence that Dodd-Frank has been holding back the economy.”
The article talks about the Democrats in support, up for reelection, “tack towards Trump”.
The decision of these Democrats to tack towards Trump and the GOP not only operates under the assumption that the financial industry and Republicans are right that overreach is strangling growth; it also presupposes that working with Trump and the GOP to relax rules on bankers is a winning electoral strategy—that the bipartisanship itself is a selling point to swing voters.
Really? Working with republicans to dismantle protections put in place to prevent another world shaking financial crisis might be a selling point to swing voters? To the base? R U Fn kidding me?
...But advocacy groups like Indivisible and Public Citizen are rallying opposition on social media, furiously tweeting out damning quotes from fact sheets and citing polls showing support for more banking regulation. They are even hinting at primarying Democrat co-sponsors.
Swing voters or base? Seems like Democrats have been here before, did we learn anything?
Let’s take a look at the banks, how are they struggling before this Crapo cupcake goes to vote.
Share prices have now reached heights not seen since the dotcom bubble in 2000 and the crash of 1929....
I will make a bet now that when this crap cupcake hits the fan it will be our bottom dollar that pays for it. Again.
Any of the dirty dozen belong to you? Think maybe we need to make some calls. Write some emails. Sign some petitions. Reignite Occupy Wall Street!
you may phone the United States Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121. A switchboard operator will connect you directly with the Senate office you request.
Don’t swallow the Crapo. See that it gets flushed. Call these collaborators today and tell them “No to S.2155”.
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