The GOP nomenklatura has never stood for the poorest of Americans. Being little more than an apparatchik for the wealthy oligarchs who run the country, they will stop any attempt to rein in their masters. As further proof of where their loyalties lie (because proof was needed), in the waning days of 2014, they managed to score their biggest victory so far. Bundled in a spending bill that passed the House were measures to rollback new regulations on derivatives as part of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act.
And they hope to make a bigger impact once they’ve got both houses of Congress. This is just the opening salvo.
Behold, what monster hath GOP gerrymandering and apathetic voters wrought. If you thought 2014 sucked, wait until 2015 and 2016. Nothing is going to get done, and things will be worse off for it.
Well, not nothing. Obama will probably end up with a record of more vetoes than any president in recent memory, but when you’re stopping individuals incapable of expressing themselves beyond violent temper tantrums and public martyrbation, that record is for a good cause.
Speaking to Bloomberg shortly after the spending bill passed, GOP Rep. Kevin Yoder uttered five words nobody ever wants to here a member of Politburo say: “We have created a model.” He went onto add that: “This bipartisan success shows a pathway to solving other issues in the financial services area.”
With zero debate and a looming deadline, Congress shoved through the bipartisan spending bill in December that gutted new regulations on complicated financial instruments called “swaps.” Then, days later, the feds announced that a core element of the Volcker Rule, which bans banks from speculative trading, is going to be delayed until 2017.
This is a neat little example of how the parasites of Wall Street are fighting back. Their new strategy includes fighting for a delay, buying time and buying bipartisan support from the more “moderate” democrats for legislative rollbacks. Lisa Donner, executive director for Americans for Financial Reform, noted that the “attacks are nothing new, but they’ll harder and faster.”
The Republicans have their potential targets already lined up, and have been laying them out through dozens of hearings and bills that the House has passed. Thought the potential for a full repeal probably isn’t on the table, but death by a thousand cuts is almost certainly the endgame. In the process of targeting new oversight for “systematically important” institutions that could threaten the entire economy if they were in trouble, attempting to repeal new rules for unwinding failing banks, and trying to alter the funding, structure, and oversight of the new consumer watchdog group supported by President Obama, the GOP is trying to shift as much attention away from the parasites on Wall Street as possible — and they’ve gained more traction in the recent months.
They’ve allied themselves with smaller banks, Main Street companies, and others outside of Wall Street who have been deluded into thinking Dodd-Frank unfairly burdens them. This notion that it hurts “Main Street” is how the Nomenklatura framed their case against the Volcker Rule, and the successful push to repeal the swaps regulations in December only picked up speed once regional banks joined those vocally opposing the regulations.
Senate Majority Leader Turtle McConnell (R-Galapagos) said after the election that, “The big guys are doing just fine under Dodd-Frank. The community bankers are struggling,” and that, “I do think the Banking Committee will want to take a look at how much damage it’s done to the little guys who had nothing whatsoever to do with the meltdown in 2008.”
The backlash against the move to dismantle it, though, is promising. According to former Senator Barney Frank, who helped laid the ground work for the Dodd-Frank legislation, “I was worried about this happening, but I have been encouraged by the angry reaction…I was afraid that they would do this, and nobody would fight back. It’s now clear the president is going to be much tougher in resisting it.”
President Obama has promised to support his reform, come hell or high water: “If they try to water down consumer protections that we put in place in the aftermath of the financial crisis, I will say no.”
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