A raw deal for Republicans on financial regulatory reform

By Jon Ward – The Daily Caller

One day after Republicans said they had secured a deal on a financial regulation bill that would allow them to move forward on debating the bill, they denounced the legislation and said it would not accomplish any of their goals for preventing bailouts or making the markets more secure.

“The legislation that we are about to consider will help the likes of Goldman Sachs, but will harm the American people,” said Sen. Richard Shelby, Alabama Republican and ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee.

“It will lead to job losses, lost opportunities for businesses to productively invest in the future, and it will ensure future bailouts,” Shelby said on the Senate floor.

Shelby, who said Wednesday that Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, Connecticut Democrat, had given him assurances that he would make sure the regulatory reform bill ended any chance of bailouts for large financial institutions, said Thursday that the bill still contained the provisions he objected to.

“I appreciate his assurances and take him at his word, but I am concerned that there appear to be no substantive changes in the relevant sections of the bill that would reflect such assurances,” Shelby said of Dodd.

It was an acrimonious start — despite the encomiums voiced by both sides — to a debate that is expected to take at least two weeks. Republicans ended their filibuster of the bill Wednesday after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, said he would keep them in the chamber through midnight to make them sustain their blocking maneuver.

The GOP complaints on Thursday indicated that the main reason the party dropped their filibuster was to avoid the physical and political toll of the all-night exercise.

FULL STORY

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