Pissed with Republicans’ stalling tactics on financial reform, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid offered his biggest bash of GOPers yet today. GOPers, Reid quipped, are doing nothing less than “making love with Wall Street” with their continued obstruction. Reid’s comments come as Senate GOPers continue to stall the Senate’s progress on passing a financial reform bill; after voting three separate times to block open debate on the Senate floor last week, Republicans are now refusing to submit their own amendments to the finance bill, which has slowed the bill’s progress. They say they won’t let the amendment process proceed until Sens. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) reach a strong agreement on how to euthanize too-big-to-fail banks. That agreement appeared to be reached late last night, but it’s still not clear if GOPers are ready to move ahead on financial reform.
Today, Republicans released their own version of a new consumer protection division to counter the Democrats’ plan. The GOP’s version would seriously scale back consumer provisions in the current bill, crafted by Democrats, by both weakening the division’s rule-writing power and continuing to let federal bank regulators preempt rules crafted at the state level. The GOP’s decision to lay out its own consumer division could signal the party’s intention to let the debate go forward, which would allow votes on amendments to happen today.
