It is so sad it’s almost funny when a majority political party thinks if they name legislation something positive, the negative aspects will not be examined. There is no debate against the fact that our financial services system is damaged. With remaining scars from Goldman Sacs, Bernie Madoff and others, there is a need for reform. However, the democrats’ definition of such as seen through this recent bill begs to differ from what is really required for us to escape the continuing turmoil of recession.
Within this legislation there seems to be 2 factors: New oversight and a “fund” to assist large companies. However, the holes of both these factors shows the real fan of the Democrats, the big businesses, will exit the field once again scot-free. In fact, Simon Johnson of the International Monetary Fund has already stated that the bill will do nothing to get rid of “too big to fail” firms. Even the democrats own treasury secretary Timothy Geithner has stated a bailout is not the way to go in order to assist our continuing recession nor protect shareholders and creditors from losses, the real people who need help.
The reality is the fund is nothing more than a bail out for large banks and another way for our government to control yet again an additional part of our lives. Throughout the bill, Democrats are etching ways for large banks to be bailed out and as a result, owned by the government. This includes extending the Federal Reserves “emergency lending power” not to mention creating a $50 billion fund. Who pays their bill, for once is actually periodically mentioned this time: A new allowance for the Federal Reserves and the FDIC’s to use “taxpayer money” is actually mentioned in the legislation. At least this time they tell us straight that we will be holding the bag.
Returning to the oversight, the Democratic majority believe placing title on more people and supposed oversight surrounding big businesses will assist in the future of the Financial Services. However, they do not realize that organizations and regulations have already been put into play but have not been either followed through on or followed period. Hence, the reality should not be more oversight but a revision of the current oversight and assurance that what has happened before will be watched for now. The Democrats want to create new organizations and oversight while ignoring the current oversight and organizations and really re-examining them. Intelligent oversight and not over-oversight is what our nation’s financial markets needs.
For some reason, nobody truly saw this pre-emptive strike of the Democrats earlier. While some saw it once he held another one of his famous “bipartisan” meetings, we were still hit from behind. Further, already the real victims of our past meltdowns, the small businesses, are screaming against the bill. Not only small banks, connections to the large organizations which will be assisted, but also agricultural businesses are concerned about the risks more regulation will have on them.
However, once again even the people supporting it have not read the bill and therefore do not realize how much a bailout they are allowing the nation to pay for. On Morning Joe, the Administration’s Council of Economic Advisors member Austan Goolsbee said that the bill actually outlawed bailouts. This reflects when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi called ObamaCare a Constitutional Jobs Bill. Once again, Democrats are giving organizations blank checks for the American People to pay and aren’t even seeing who’s getting what in the process.
Despite this, the real people who need the help is ignored: small businesses. They hold not only the majority of the business these big companies carry but also are the ones that are really working the hardest to get us out of this financial turmoil. We still have people struggling to get their tables filled with food and their homes and cars paid for. Still there are students who are fighting against industry veterans for entry level jobs. While Obama hopes to see this bill approved by the 2 year anniversary of the financial recession, you have to wonder: Why isn’t he helping us get out of it instead of celebrating it?
Heather Bachman is a political commentator and broadcaster and a New Jersey native. More information can be found at HeatherBachman.com.