The title is not something that you would expect to see in a Daily Kos diary. It is, however, a line that should be repeated ad nauseum by the Democratic Party in the lead up to the battle over financial reform. So why isn't it? Maybe because they haven't had the idea yet...
While we pat ourselves on the back and celebrate the historic HCR victory of the last few weeks, a cause just as important is slipping below our radar. Those of us who are paying attention should either be panicked or cynically dejected, and its a pattern the Democratic party should be all too familiar with by now. As the bill moves from the House to the Senate, and as the media shifts its focus from health care to Wall Street, there are a few things that the Daily Kos community should clearly keep in mind.
First, the media is going to shift its focus from health care to financial reform while expecting the same political reactions. If you think the Chamber of Commerce couldn't get any crazier, and if you think that Fox News reached its apex by claiming health care reform would be Armageddon, prepare yourself for the upcoming onslaught. Every large corporation in the country has a stake in financial reform, and with campaign finance laws relaxed in the wake of Citizens United, the health care insanity will look mild. The media will look for combativeness, and its in the Democratic interest not to give in to the temptation.
Second, it looks like the bill is already being dragged to the right, as reports surface that cite the "new bipartisanship" of Congress:
The Senate Banking Committee approved sweeping financial reform legislation Monday [3/22/10] on a party line vote, with Republicans refusing to offer a single amendment, providing a stark reminder that Democrats still have a long way to go to gain essential GOP support.
Hopes had been high that financial reform would avoid the partisan rancor that has marked other major legislation atop the White House agenda. But after months of talks with multiple Republican partners, Senate Banking Chairman Chris Dodd still lacks a single GOP vote for his bill.
Senators on both sides of the aisle tried to sell Monday’s vote as a move toward bipartisanship. Key negotiators on both sides said talks would continue unmolested by a grueling committee slog through the 401 amendments filed to Dodd’s bill, with the goal of reaching the still-elusive bipartisan deal before the bill hit the Senate floor.
And the conservative apoplexy will certainly push it farther that way. Chris Hayes describes the bill's current position (in an article everyone should read), concluding:
Progressive critics of the healthcare reform bill like Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich voted for it because they were persuaded that the bill moved things in the right direction and would provide immense relief and security to millions of Americans. With financial regulation, the banks aren't holding 30 million uninsured Americans hostage. And a bill that passes but doesn't reconfigure the political economy of the financial sector stands a good chance of making things worse, allowing Washington and Wall Street to go back to the status quo with a false sense of security that the problem has been solved. At this point, I think the House bill with stronger derivatives language would clear the bar. But throughout the next few months, the most important part of the fight to watch is how the banks react as the legislation develops. If the banks aren't fighting and squealing like hell, you'll know the reform isn't worth the paper it's written on. And if you see the main industry groups actually endorsing the final product, as, say, AHIP and PhRMA did with healthcare reform, then it's time to bring those "kill the bill" chants out of retirement.
There is cynicism abound, most succinctly described by Digby's insightfulness:
This thing is looking like it could turn out to be a real stinker that offers very little in return for ignoring the systemic problem of Too Big To Fail.I like Barney Frank and I don't doubt that he did the best he could, but it was actually the very least that anyone in good conscience could expect. If the Senate is further watering it down to near uselessness, it's hard to see why any liberal wouldn't walk away and come back with something better until it passes. I'd say the odds of a vote for this bill ending up being another Iraq war albatross around their necks are 50/50 at best.
It is, however, safe to say that the dominance of health care has yet to leave the media with a powerful framing of any financial reform arguments. There is a small window that may allow Democrats to change the public's perspective and learn from its last battle. Remember that, whatever the tea party has become, its formation was precipitated by the egregious actions of Wall Street. To this day, there is not a lot of love for Wall Street among the tea party faithful:
It's a movement dominated for the moment by mistrust of big government and big government health-care plans. But it's also animated by mistrust of big institutions in general, and a tendency to see those institutions secretly working in tandem to the detriment of the little guy. So it's a short leap from anger at Washington's spending of taxpayer dollars to anger at Wall Street executives saved by those same taxpayer dollars -- and then taking home big bonus checks.
[...]
Judson Phillips, a Tennessee attorney and organizer of the convention, says the tea-party movement, disparate as it is, includes many people "who believe that Congress pays far too much attention to Wall Street and not enough attention to Main Street." Tea-party rallies, he says, draw a lot of small businessmen and women frustrated at their own inability to get capital while big banks prosper, and thus inclined to think the deck is stacked against them.
While the media is looking for the next story, let's be the community that gives it to them. Whatever the tea party's faults, we can all agree that Wall Street needs to change. Instead of providing the same back-and-forth that led to the Democratic party bloodily limping across the health care finish line, it is time to move forward in a different direction.
So I propose a new talking point. A simple statement that not only illustrates how out of touch the GOP is with everyday Americans, but also embraces the tea party for the things that we agree upon.
When it comes to financial issues, the GOP hasn't learned anything from the tea party.
What's that? The claim is ridiculous? You must of forgot about this:
Boehner then added that the bankers should be standing up for themselves against "those little punk staffers" trying to write new regulations:
"Don’t let those little punk staffers take advantage of you and stand up for yourselves," Boehner said.
Or
this:
GOP strategists hope to benefit from the reaction to the White House's populist rhetoric and proposals, which range from sharp critiques of bonuses to a tax on big Wall Street banks, caps on executive pay and curbs on business practices deemed too risky.
Or this:
Luntz has released a new memo [...] which lays out the arguments and language Republicans should use to kill financial reform.
[...]
The new memo instructs opponents of financial reform to simply lie about reform legislation, and to twist economic anxiety resulting from the recession into fear of any government effort to fix the underlying cause of the financial crisis. The most dishonest argument is that financial reform would "punish" taxpayers while rewarding "big banks and credit card companies." In reality, top financial industry lobbyists are not only fighting proposed oversight regulations, but have said recently that they are opposed to "any regulation" at all.
Or this:
In a call to arms, House Republican leaders met with more than 100 lobbyists at the Capitol Visitors Center on Tuesday afternoon to try to fight back against financial regulatory overhaul legislation.
"The message was [House Financial Services Chairman Barney] Frank and the Democratic majority are ruining America, ruining capitalism, and stand up for yourselves," said a lobbyist who attended the meeting. "They said, ‘Look, you all oppose this bill, but only a few of you have come out publicly.’"
It's the last thing the GOP would expect. And it begs the obvious question -- Will the Republicans buck their corporate masters? Will we allow the framing to be that Too Big To Fail is in the average American's best interests?
We were caught off guard by the ferocity of the health care debate. Let's make sure that financial reform has a team that is fully prepared to win this battle.