JONATHAN CHAIT NOVEMBER 4, 2010
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One of the GOP's great political triumphs was to carry water for Wall Street in the financial regulation debate, raise enormous sums from Wall Street in return for doing so, and still win votes from people who blame Wall Street for the economy. Now John Boehner is promising to go another step:
On the financial regulation front, Republicans did not threaten to repeal the law, but they said they would use the leverage of their new House majority to conduct careful oversight, which could include hearings and the use of subpoena power.
“When it comes to the financial services bill and the 358 regulatory filings required under that bill,” Mr. Boehner said, “it’s going to require a significant amount of oversight — so that not only will the Congress understand, but the American people will understand, just what this bill will do to our financial services industry.” The Republicans will also most likely seek changes to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which they believe was given too much power.
Does he really think this will make people more sympathetic? The Republicans won by portraying the administration as tied in with the big banks. Do they think a bunch of hearings with sobbing bankers telling their tales of being forced to curtail their business practices by the nasty overbearing Democrats is going to help?
8 comments
I don't know why anything said by Republican leadership is measured by whether it makes sense. Right now, the proposal is to go back to 2008 spending levels while keeping the Bush tax cuts in place. This is their balanced budget solution? Why don't they solve the financial crisis by going back to the rules pre crisis on the theory that those were the rules in place when we didn't have the crisis; or go back to homeland security in 2000 for the same reason? Where is the thinking about the world today? I could just die.
- Nusholtz
November 4, 2010 at 8:14am
All lies, all the time. Thinking? The only thinking is the sort of thinking that the mafia engages in. Is the mafia worried about policy? No. It is only worried about what it can get away with and the money it can successfully pocket when it does. The Republican party is nothing but a gang of criminals. So, what do you expect?
- roidubouloi
November 4, 2010 at 8:37am
Chait is mistaking correlation for causation (see his first link). Voters upset with the banks are not necessarily associating the banks with the democrats. More likely, they're just upset (with the banks--and everything else) AND voting against the democrats. During hard times, more voters than ever are voting with their gut, not their brains. 30% of the electorate has either lost a job at some point during the last two years or has a member of their immediate family who has (it's something like that--even higher, I think). You can convince one of these voters that Obama has reigned in the banks, cut taxes, and shrunk the deficit--but more likely than not, if that person is full of frustration or anxiety about his or her economic situation, it won't make a bit of difference. They're just thinking, "I hate my life. Throw the bums out!" They're not in the mood to think about the fact that things could have been or could get much worse.
- khedlund
November 4, 2010 at 8:38am
Maybe the Democratic strategy going forward is just as simple as: Give 'em enough rope. That's prettry much what Clinton did with Gingrich, and it worked pretty well with him. And these guys are crazier than the Gingrich Republicans, and utterly devoid of anything resembling a plan to improve the economy or address the deficit. Now that the spotlight is on them and a least half of the responsibility is theirs, let's see how America likes the spectacle they are going to get. One thing Obama could do (and this was raised in the blog world yesterday...) is hold the line at anything that adds to the deficit. Enforce PAYGO. Any tax cut, any repeal of any law, any proposal that will deny revenue or spend money that does not contain an offset....veto it. Plain and simple. If we can't get stimulus passed, and the country wants us to balance our budgets, fine, lets hold them to it. No goodies to the corporations or rich folks unless they offset with a cut. Then let's see who squeals. And challenge them every day to come up with a coherent proactive jobs strategy. Propose, propose, propose and see if they can either meet Obama's proposals or match them. You can win an election promising to throw the bums out, but you can't govern unless you have something to replace the bums with. America voted for "change" ,again, I assume it expects change to happen. Hold them to their promises, just as Obama was held to his. Just feed them rope.
- vanwurs
November 4, 2010 at 12:07pm
Jonathan Chait is mistaking correlation for causation? What passage in his above post supports that? He is just chuckling at the fact that the Republicans, who protect Wall Street, capitalized on anti-bank sentiments among the electorate. All too often the comments out here are God-awful. The Republicans here are playing a double game and Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Dish has it just right: the party now is nothing more than a cynical, power-hungry entity, so expect more of this playing of both sides of the street. This will only go so far, though. I think that roid is a username for a staffer in the office of Alan Grayson. Such bulldoggedness and Manichaeanism is only likely to emerge form some place like that. Either that or r. is a moonlighting Markos Moulitsas Zuniga.
- liberal reformer
November 4, 2010 at 12:10pm
At some point you have to get back to populism.(It's an important part of who we are and we've suffered tragically for not speaking effectively on those terms. ) Those financial oversight hearings would be a great place to do that. The problem is that message would have to be coordinated by all the Democrats on the committee. That's more organization than we can handle right now. It's bad enough that we've suffered at the hands of the plutocrats, what's worse is that we are in no position to turn things around.
- turntxblue
November 4, 2010 at 12:59pm
roid, iirc, is a well-experienced political operative, libref. He's got more political savvy in his left pinky than grayson and markos combined, and more cynicism in his right pinky than you do in your entire body.
Besides that, I think he's pretty much dead on. The GOP, emboldened by an electorate who will forgive anything as long as the bring home the bacon when it's time to pass laws, have devolved into something strongly resembling an organized crime syndicate, with no loss of irony for the fact that they're the lawmakers of this country.
- GSpinks
November 4, 2010 at 1:35pm
That is just fine by me, GS. Too much cynicism can lead you into error just as quickly as too much credulity. Did you not know this? I mean, you're a smart guy (I think I have the gender right here). Surely you can see how Manichaean and over-the-top r's posts are. Just to take one little instance: he refers to libertarians as "plutocrats"; this is hilarious, unless you are talking about the Koch (coke) brothers. Libertarians tend to be young and male and metaphorically leaning to the autistic side and not especially wealthy. And if you see all political philosophy as nothing more than a cover for self-interest (and this is by no means always true - see where undue cynicism can lead you?), a protectionist ideology would serve far better than libertarianism ever could. I think of someone like Axe or Rahm as an experienced political operative. But r.? Please.
- liberal reformer
November 4, 2010 at 4:10pm