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Get Outraged: CROmnibus
Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2014 12:34 pm
by Guinevere
No question the government should be funded but making major policy changes - especially on issues like banking regulation (rolled back) and campaign finance (spending limits increased by 10-fold) - in the hurried quiet of the this legislation is not how government is supposed to work. Shame on the President for abdicating any leadership role (again). Shame on the Republicans who extorted policy changes through this process and the spineless Democrats who signed off on it (I'm looking at you Babs Mikulski). Bless you Nancy Pelosi and Elizabeth Warren for speaking out and letting us know what's been happening behind closed doors. Welcome to law-making in the dark. This is what the midterm elections have wrought.
http://cognoscenti.wbur.org/2014/12/12/ ... n-mcnamara
From the article:
Caving is not compromising. House Democrats, led by a defeatist, lame duck president, caved last night when they endorsed a deeply flawed $1.014 trillion spending bill in a dubious show of bipartisanship.
It was not obstructionist of dissenters to try to block passage of a 1,603-page bill, crafted behind closed doors, which contained major policy changes rolling back hard-won restrictions on Wall Street speculation and political campaign contributions.
Forgive the dismay of those of us who have marginally higher expectations of the People’s House than docile acquiescence to what House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi rightly called blackmail. Proponents convinced just enough of their Democratic colleagues to win a 219-206 House vote, ignoring regressive riders in a bill that it is a fair bet few members had actually read in its entirety. (Language allowing individuals to triple their contributions to national political parties in presidential elections appeared on page 1,599, The Washington Post noted.)
Even the usually clear-eyed Senator Barbara A. Mikulski, a Maryland Democrat, called the deal she helped craft a “monumental achievement,” simply because it averted yet another government shutdown.
I want to throw up this morning.
Re: Get Outraged: CROmnibus
Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2014 12:40 pm
by wesw
I completely agree that these omnibus bills are a travesty.
Re: Get Outraged: CROmnibus
Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2014 2:54 pm
by Lord Jim
I completely disagree with the banking regulation changes, but the increase in donation limits to the political parties doesn't bother me at all. Given the Supreme Court decisions on campaign spending, strengthening the parties influence doesn't seem like a bad thing to me. and (unlike the independent groups) the names of the donors to the parties are public information.
Re: Get Outraged: CROmnibus
Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2014 4:15 pm
by rubato
It is deeply discouraging but the Democrats have done such a hopelessly bad job of communicating with the electorate for more than a decade that this is what they get.
For the past 6 years every week they should have had an "America Held Hostage" update news conference were they listed all the appointments which were held up by 'secret holds' and for how many months and reviewed the quallifications. They should have listed all of the issues and legislation which the Republicans were obstructing and what the effects of each obstruction were. And finally they should have featured the total costs of the Rs pissy little shutdown. They should then have pointed out how the deficit went away without their idiotic cuts &c.
They're too busy pissing on each other to communicate clearly or to get anything done.
yrs,
rubato
Re: Get Outraged: CROmnibus
Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2014 5:37 pm
by Lord Jim
The fight may not be over on the monkeying with Dodd-Frank:
Warren, Vitter team up against Dodd-Frank change in spending bill
Sen. Elizabeth Warren joined with her Republican colleague Sen. David Vitter on Friday to try to remove a financial regulation roll-back from the omnibus spending bill set for a vote in the Senate.
The Massachusetts Democrat has been the most vocal opponent of the tweak to the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law included in the spending bill, urging House Democrats to oppose the bill because of it earlier in the week.
With the spending bill now moving to the Senate for passage, Warren and Vitter have created an unusual alliance of liberal and conservative lawmakers to try to get the provision removed.
"Congress should not put taxpayers on the hook for another bailout, and this giveaway that was drafted by Citigroup lobbyists has no place in a critical government funding bill," Warren said in a statement that she was filing an amendment with Vitter to remove the language.
The spending bill includes a roll-back of a Dodd-Frank provision, known as the swaps push-out, meant to prevent bank units that receive taxpayer insurance from speculating with certain kinds of derivatives. Reports from the New York Times indicate that the repeal measure was originally drafted by lobbyists for the megabank Citigroup, a claim that Warren has drawn attention during the week.
“We need to remove these risky derivatives that aren't even necessary for normal banking purposes and would only make future taxpayer-funded bailouts more likely," Vitter said in calling for a vote on the amendment.
The House passed the government funding bill in a close vote late Thursday night, despite vocal opposition to the swaps push-out repeal from liberal Democrats.
The White House has pushed hard for the passage of the bill, despite the inclusion of the Dodd-Frank tweak.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid called on his Democratic colleagues to pass the bill in a floor speech Friday morning, saying that it "achieves many of our important priorities.”
If the Warren-Vitter amendment were to get a vote and be adopted, the bill would have to be sent back to the House.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/warre ... _click=rss
There is no imminent danger of a government shutdown, (an extension into the middle of next week has already been passed) and with public attention on this growing, it's possible there may be enough pressure created to force Reid to allow a vote to strip this Fast One out of the bill. If such an up or down vote is held, with each member of the Senate having to go on the record on it, there's a very good chance it would be removed, and the bill sent back to the House.
This is probably the first time I've ever found myself in agreement with Elizabeth Warren, (and I wouldn't be surprised if it winds up also being the last) but while over regulation of business by the government is a
huge problem in many areas (particularly with small and mid-sized businesses) the banking sector is not one of them.
The record clearly shows that
this is a sector (critical to the health of every other sector of the economy) that has been badly
under-regulated. If anything we have not gone
far enough to reign in irresponsible gambling with other people's money, reckless lending practices, and "too big to fail". It boggles the mind to think that we could consider reducing the relatively modest rules that
have been put in place.
Re: Get Outraged: CROmnibus
Posted: Sat Dec 13, 2014 6:11 pm
by Guinevere
If Warren and Vitter can agree, than so can you and I, LJ. You should pay more attention to what she's been saying about Wall Street and financial regulation - she is right on (and a warrior princess - no native American pun meant). I'm thinking seriously of joining the "draft Lizzie" bandwagon.
You should also be concerned about the campaignlimits skyrocketing up, regardless of what the Supreme Court has said. First, they're wrong and secondly, we are becoming more and more a nation run by corporate and other monied special interests. Liberal or Conservative, Dem or Repub, it's a whole problem that is undercutting the very foundation of what and how government is supposed to function in our country.