The Senate - Where Lobbyists can guarantee anything in the national interest will die

We've just seen health care turn into the for profit health lobbyists' wet dream and now here comes the financial lobbyists (as if the House bill wasn't a bunch of swiss cheese already).

The American Bankers Association issued a "Call to Action" on Wednesday, urging its lobbyists and member banks to make an all-out effort to crush regulatory reform in Senate. As part of that campaign, it lashed out at its community-bank rival, charging it with being too soft on bank reform efforts.

In an unusually frank memo from ABA Chairman Art Johnson, the lobby group congratulates bankers for sending some 300,000 letters to Congress opposing reform, crediting the effort with killing several significant provisions.

And it takes aim at the Independent Community Bankers Association, which endorsed the final bank-reform bill to make its way through the House last Friday.

"To be successful in the Senate, we must have a united message. And that is why I am truly saddened by what I am about to report to you. I do this not to cast blame, but in the hope we can fix this and be united as we go to the Senate," said Johnson.

"Last week, I was on the daily conference call of the ABA lobbying team and the state associations when it was announced that ICBA was supporting the House bill going to the floor. I must say there was shock and disbelief because all the states had just reported that their bankers remained strongly opposed to the bill. All of ABA's officers are community bankers, as are many members of the ABA Board, which voted unanimously to oppose the bill. Many of the states had recently had similar formal votes. A number of the state associations are jointly affiliated with ABA and ICBA, and they all oppose the bill, as apparently do some of the ICBA state associations... ABA will reach out to ICBA; we will work for unity."

Meanwhile Detroit has a U6 umemployment rate of 50%.

Yet we cannot get anything through Congress in spite of the very obvious and dire consequences of these many corporations short sighted agendas which literally are destroying the nation.

And if all else fails, they can bank on Senators killing anything they haven't personally written regardless or what that means, even to their own demise.

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Correct

This senate will not pass anything that helps people and is best for all of the country (vs. MNCs and financial conglomerates).

This health care reform bill is a complete fiasco. Excise taxes that aren't index, weak subsidies, caps on insurance limits, mandates without opportunity for cheaper alternatives, NO cost controls. People who are defending it are trying to compare it to Dutch and Swiss models. FAR from it those models heavily regulate the insurance industry - particularly limiting the amount of profits that a company can make. Democrats screwed the pooch on this one.

RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.

Oh, that's right excise tax is cost control

meaning people will be taxed to take a crappier policy with less coverage and higher deductibles.

Sorry, Robert, for talking about health care reform in this thread. But it's an example of what is to come with financial regulatory reform in Senate.

RebelCapitalist.com - Financial Information for the Rest of Us.