Senate passes financial regulation bill giving the federal government vast new powers. Republicans slammed the bill for doing nothing to fix the problem of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government-owned failed mortgage giants who have cost taxpayers $145 billion and are poised to hemorrhage hundreds of billions more over the next few years.

By Jon Ward – The Daily Caller

The Senate Thursday evening passed a landmark financial regulation bill that Democrats said would prevent future taxpayer-funded bailouts of large Wall Street firms, but which Republicans said was a rushed and overbearing measure that could do more harm than good.

The Senate passed the bill on a 59-39 vote, with four Republicans joining Democrats in voting for it and two Democrats voting against it.

The bill will give the federal government new powers to take over failing financial institutions and unwind them, require complicated derivative trading to be routed through a central clearinghouse, and create a massive new consumer protection agency.

The bill will now go to a conference committee so that it can be reconciled with a version passed by the House last fall. Democrats want to get the bill to President Obama’s desk by July 4.

Democrats hailed the legislation.

“It means that we’re finally going to put an end to the whole notion of ‘too big to fail.’ You’re never going to have to hear about taxpayers bailing out Wall Street,” said Sen. Mark Warner, Virginia Democrat, who was a key player in crafting the bill.

Obama made a simple and firm promise: “There will be no more taxpayer-funded bailouts — period.”

But Republicans slammed the bill for doing nothing to fix the problem of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two government-owned failed mortgage giants who have cost taxpayers $145 billion and are poised to hemorrhage hundreds of billions more over the next few years.

Sen. Richard Shelby, the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, asked how the Senate could pass legislation on a topic so complex when the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, created by Congress to determine the causes of the 2008 financial crisis and near-meltdown, has just recently only begun its work and is nowhere near to delivering a final report.

“This represents a fundamental failure of this body to do its own due diligence before we even attempt such a significant undertaking,” said Shelby, an Alabama Republican. “The American people expect more, and certainly deserved more from us.”

The GOP also said the government’s takeover authority would privilege large financial institutions over smaller one and still leave risk of bailouts in such a way that Wall Street is incentivized toward greater risk-taking instead of less, that derivatives regulations would be overly burdensome and drive trading overseas, and that the consumer agency would be a huge and unnecessary bureaucracy that could end up intruding into every day American commerce.

FULL STORY

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