Can we expect good financial legislation out of this Conference?
Members of the House of Representatives and the Senate are meeting to hammer out a financial regulation bill that will be legislation for the ages!
It’s doubtful given the make up of the selectees forming the committee.
The obvious deficiencies in the conferees from the Senate are well documented in the recent article, “Are You Shitting Me?”
It’s a little more difficult to judge the predisposition of the House representatives involved in this process. There are more conferees from the House and they represent smaller, more local segments of the country.
But, if John Boehner’s smoke screen and Ed Royce’s opening statement are any indication of the direction the Republican’s are going we can’t expect much help ‘for the people’ from them.
Reforming Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will be necessary as we exit this recession. The problems at the mortgage giants are enormous and must be approached in the near future as a pressing and separate issue. But, Boehner, Royce and Republican’s use them as a diversion from their complicity in the financial meltdown.
If Fannie and Freddie are a separate issue, why do they keep pushing to include them in this financial regulation bill that they already claim is too many pages?
Read the rest of this entry »