Rep. Gutierrez Slams GOP For Misunderstanding Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act
By CSPANJunkie Friday Dec 11, 2009 9:00am
From The Gavel--Debate Begins On The Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act:
Tonight, the House begins consideration of HR 4173, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. This comprehensive financial regulation reform bill will enact common-sense reforms including ending bailouts by helping ensure taxpayers are never again on the hook for Wall Street’s risky behavior and bad bets; protecting families’ retirement funds, college savings, and homes and businesses’ financial futures from unnecessary risk by Wall Street lenders and speculators and high-paid corporate executives; protecting consumers from predatory lending abuses, fine print, and industry gimmicks; and finally bringing transparency and accountability to a financial system that has run amok. [...]
Subcommittee Chairman Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) breaks down how the legislative language that Republicans are disingenuously claiming is a ‘bailout fund’ works and why he supports the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.
And from Ryan Grim at the HuffPo--Rep. Gutierrez Slams GOP For Misunderstanding Bill:
The GOP claims that the House bill will create a "bailout fund" for systemically important financial institutions. Gutierrez, a member of House leadership, pointed out that the bill does not, in fact, contain such a fund. [...]
What the bill does do, he explained, is create a fund that major firms must pay into. If banks get into trouble, the fund is used to take them over, break them up and sell off the parts. If such a fund was socialist, Gutierrez said, then so is Geico. But unlike Geico, he said, drivers who crash the economy don't get their bank repaired and returned to them under the Democratic plan.
"What they won't tell you is unlike everybody in this room who has to go and take out an insurance policy to drive a car, they want Wall Street and Goldman Sachs to be able to drive our economy into the ground without paying a cent of insurance in case they act recklessly. And all we're saying as Democrats is: 'It's simple. If you wanna do business in America and you threaten the economic stability of our country, then you gotta pay into an insurance fund.' But lemme tell you. It's not the kind of insurance fund where you get into an accident and they take your car and they fix it and they kind of give it back to you new. No no. In our insurance fund, you know what happens? We chop up your car into pieces and sell it and then we pay back the fund with the pieces. That's our fund. Read the bill. It's a funeral fund. You guys love to talk about the death and death and death when it came to health care. Why don't you talk about our death panels now?"
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No I'm sorry, we are all out of repig ass today because Rep. Guttieres cut it off and served it to them on a plate.
Where has this guy been hiding? We need more of him. I think he and Rep Grayson need to team up and pummel the living shit out of the repigs. Forget Obama in 2012, these two could run and really make a change. Change that we really need.
"these two could run and really make a change"
Sure, they could make Nelson, Lieberman, Baucus etc. do the right thing?
Really?
To believe that a little-seen, sophomoric foam-at-the-mouth speech on the House floor is "serving it to them on a plate" is pollyannish at best. For CSPANJunkie to even post on this speech is pathetic. We don't need theatrics, we need reform--NOW!
Gutierrez makes a fool of himself with his arm waving and "death panel" nonsense. What we need are calm, level-headed people who can effectively frame these issues in moral terms. That's right, MORAL terms-because that's what this is. When banks can charge people 30%+ interest on credit cards and financial institutions can gamble our futures without consequences, we're looking at institutional depravity. A profound and total failure of business ethics.
Just once, I want a politician to stand on the floor, and in a sober tone explain to our government and the American people that unbridled greed has to be combated. That the convergence of diffused responsibility and the profit motive in our banking sector has reached critical mass, and that the only ethical and moral path forward involves real reform. The safeguards created by our grandparents in response to the Depression were wise, and we have to return to those principles or continue to suffer at the hands of the narcissistically self-entitled.
Gutierrez, if you want to make a real statement, stop with the spittle already and speak truth to power in a way that will make them listen.
um . . .
'It's simple. If you wanna do business in America and you threaten the economic stability of our country, then you gotta pay into an insurance fund.'
Sounds like real American values to me. What is with the GOP and Democratic corporate shills.
Not just the insurance but this bill shoud carry the pawlrty tax on stock or investment trades.
We need more like this guy.
See there are a few politicians who don't totally suck.
:)
Nice speech.
That's about it.
Make ya feel all warm and fuzzy...good for you.
We get a soft reacharound with no climax.
The big money contributors get laid.
By tomorrow Nancy Pelosi will move to censure Rep. Guttieres.
She's so bipartisan.
I can't say with any certainty about this, so I often try to make sense of it by listening to Mr. Taibbi. Alice X is a good bell-weather for this crap as well. IMO
Whatever the president's real motives are, the extensive series of loophole-rich financial "reforms" that the Democrats are currently pushing may ultimately do more harm than good. In fact, some parts of the new reforms border on insanity, threatening to vastly amplify Wall Street's political power by institutionalizing the taxpayer's role as a welfare provider for the financial-services industry.
At one point in the debate, Obama's top economic advisers demanded the power to award future bailouts without even going to Congress for approval — and without providing taxpayers a single dime in equity on the deals.
What does the public know? They don't even understand the Bill of Rights, you think they're smart enuf to understand this.
Our politicians are selling out the country for their own short term gain. Kicking the can down the road is what modern politicians do.
The cost, the ramifications....not their problem...they're counting on gettin rich before the implosion and taking a dirt nap during it.
At least they are showing the signs, by trying to make some bankers wait 5 years before they can cash in on their bonus stock options. I'd be interested to see the market activity on those options around maturity?
Oh well shit happens... my backs not up against the wall--just yet :-/
Wasn't Gutierrez the guy who wanted to "limit" predatory lenders to about 400% interest?
They just take turns playing good cop then bad cop then good....
Very good. You're learning.
It was a good speech, but Rep. Gutierrez has many fences to mend in this city if he wants to be more than a local D.C. Representative.
Gutierrez got his first start as a city alderman through the help of Chicago's first black Mayor Harold Washington in the 1980's...Washington gave Gutierrez his start in politics. In 1987 Mayor Washington suddenly died of a massive heart attack and before his body was cold, Gutierrez had sided with the racist opposition here in Chicago who were praying that Washington would fail(sound familiar?). Many of us Chicagoans don't trust Gutierrez and we see him as a typical opportunist.
Whatever happened to that gem?
.
the new "we" approach
Who gives a crap what any Democrat says anymore? They fucked the healthcare bill. They're already starting to fuck us with Wall Street. The GOP just sits back and watches as the Dem "leaders" keep making fools of themselves. Besides, he's probably just pandering for campaign contributions. Donation bomb is the term, I do believe.
to bad we've been wasting our time.
lip-service in the morning....
Washington Babylon's favorite aroma therapy . . the smell of infinite distractions.
I can't say I'm HOPE-ful!
it doesn't matter if they say the right things and try to do the right things, maany of you great progressives critisize them anyway. WTF?
we see the results
the lobbyist are the only ones that show appreciation.
I thought putting the bed and paying for the screw was good enough... sorry 'bout that.
to critisize when they are doing the wrong thing but destructive to keep critisizing when they are trying to do the right thing.
Plus if you consider that a big chunk of Mr. Gutierrez's own peeps did exactly what he is chastising Republicans for. It compounds the clusterf*ck.
I think you are trying to twist people pointing out the inefficacy of Rep. Gutierrez actions in this matter... with a personal attack of some sort against him. That is a bit disingenuous IMHO>
How dare we not put party over country!!!! The gall.... LOL
My guess is getting clean will take a generation or much more, minus any periodic relapses into credit intoxication.
Everyone should send this chart to their Senators and Representatives!
http://www.lafn.org/gvdc/Natl_Debt_Chart.html
Both democrats AND Republicans should send it. Republicans are forcing their ignorance down the throats of the American People every time they open their mouths about DEBT and DEFICITS! It's time they are made to EAT their words.
Democrats need to display this chart every time they get up to speak on the floor in the House OR the Senate. I bet Grayson would have the guts. So would Bernie Sanders and Dennis Kucinich.
It's time the Democratic PARTY stopped using Republican DEBT and Republican DEFICITS as an EXCUSE to deny the needs of the American People and it's time for every ONE OF US to tell them so.
Every time Republicans have control they spend like drunken sailors totally for the benefit of the richest one percent of the wealthiest people in the country and "maybe" a little "trickle down" for the next 20 percent wealthiest. Most of those being military contractors, bankers with billions in tax shelters, insurance company and other EXECUTIVES who give them the biggest checks. NOT ONE THIN DIME FOR WORKING PEOPLE, even REWARDING corporations for TAKING AMERICAN JOBS OUT OF THIS COUNTRY and then BLAMING the American Workers for their fate!
Then Democrats get control and THEY go ahead and take MORE from the American People in the NAME OF DEFICIT REDUCTION because they have to CLEAN UP THE REPUBLICAN MESSES!
THIS TIME, we need to DEMAND they forget about the DEBT and the DEFICIT until the next Republican "rule" and in the meantime fix what the Republicans BROKE by doing the right things for Americans for the first time in 35 YEARS.
Fix the mess Republicans have made of American LIVES and restore full funding to social programs in language that cannot be changed again by some sleazy Contract ON America. Fix the EPA, the FCC, the CDC, the DOJ, FEMA, cut spending on DEATH and DESTRUCTION and invest in LIFE for ONCE!
Stop spending trillions of dollars on graft and corruption in high places and on trying to CONVERT the world to the ignorance and superstition of the Bushites and the C Street Cult and other deadly cults just like them and let people believe what they please. Get the superstition OUT of our children's schools.
Rebuild our infrastructure, restore public transportation, restore funding to law enforcement, fire fighters, emergency personnel, hire MORE teachers, give them smaller classes, give teachers the respect they deserve for the jobs they do instead of putting them in the category of baby sitters, route out the predators, both male and female among them, and do right by the rest, PAY doctors, nurses, hospital techs without always trying to cut their pay to enrich some insurance executives. Those executive won't be the ones in the ER or OR saving your LIFE!
Leave THIS current MESS for the next Republithug regime to "FIX" themselves! They BROKE IT!
Do what's RIGHT for the PEOPLE THIS TIME!
debt limit will have to be in the neighborhood of $1.8 to $1.9 trillion in order to allow the government to borrow enough money to keep the government running through December of next year.
and say I'll need a $250,000 credit line increase to get by next year.
He'll probably compromise later on, in the name of bipartisanship. The Obama presidency has turned out to be the largest scam ever known. Time to start a real progressive party. The Dems are rotten to the core, no point in wasting "hope" with these people.
have their grubby paws in the piggy bank after 8 yrs of rethug rule.
I like his style. Does anybody else hear a cartoon character's voice trying to get out of a politician's body?
personally, i have an appreciation when someone points out that capitalist/corporations use 'socialism' as a business strategy and when opposition/regulation uses a social program they cry foul. this country is vulnerable as a whole because of the buyer beware tactics of wallstreet/banks.
just keep in mind the cost for a newborn child these days is now a slap in the face and an automatic $450,000.00 entry fee. That doesn't include interest, late fees, and cost increases.
And that's just debt. . the kids housing, food, clothing, transportation etc, is additional.
Welcome to the world!
yet we still have to pay it is even more ironic.
We like to privatize our profits....
But be sure to socialize our losses....quit bailing out the insurance and banking industry. They are losers!
Looks like this bill was gutted with compromise last night
House Deal Bolsters Defense of Preemption
American Banker | Friday, December 11, 2009
By Stacy Kaper
WASHINGTON — A compromise cut late Wednesday by House leaders and Rep. Melissa Bean, D-Ill., on preemption powers for national banks would result in a substantially weaker role for states.
The deal would let the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency keep broad leeway to preempt consumer protection laws — a far cry from the Obama administration's initial effort to eliminate preemption entirely.
It is also likely to make it harder for Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd to insist that states be given broad latitude to adopt laws and rules limiting what national banks may do.
"The fact that House Democrats would balk at the bill language bodes very well when the bill goes before the Senate, which tends to be a lot more conservative on these issues," said Jaret Seiberg, a policy analyst at Washington Research Group, a division of Concept Capital.
Andrew Pinkus, a partner in the Mayer Brown law firm, who has testified in favor of federal preemption before the House Financial Services Committee, agreed.
"It's enormously significant," he said. "It tells you that the more that people look at this bill, the idea of getting rid of preemption and subjecting national banks to state laws doesn't make sense. This reaffirms the need for preemption."
Federal preemption of state laws has emerged as a central battleground on the package of financial system reforms. The House began debating the legislation late Wednesday after Bean delayed consideration of the bill until the preemption issue was addressed. A final vote was expected today.
As envisioned by the Obama administration and Democratic leaders, the bill would have created a consumer financial protection agency that would write and enforce rules for banks and nonbank financial companies. The reform plan also would have let states enforce federal and state standards against all institutions — effectively gutting a federal preemption standard that has been in place for more than a century.
{ Edited. Too Long. Please provide the link. Thank You.SiteMonitor}
WASHINGTON - The House has rejected an effort to expand a Wall Street regulation bill with mortgage relief that would let debt-ridden homeowners reduce their payments in bankruptcy court. The vote was 241-188 to reject.
Why didn't that get more attention?
Damn news media. Tiger Woods runs around on his wife? It's important. You might get to keep your house? Fuck it.
Maybe we deserve what we're getting.
No "maybe" about it...
The Repugs understand the bill alright , like health care reform they just plain reject it and will do ANYTHING to try and stop it , after all they are a subsidiary of the corporations and by extension a subsidiary of Wall street , they represent them and no one else , make the Mafia look like toddlers at a day care center .
anyone else catch that at the end?
that's an interesting slip.
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