President Gives Walt a Shout Out?

Not billed as a scolding, though it couldn't have felt like anything but to Idaho Congressman Walt Minnick seated in the second row between Representative Steve Driehaus of Ohio and Senator Daniel Akaka of Hawaii listening as President Obama spoke on financial reform Friday.  Having emerged on the front lines of the opposition to the President's plan to protect consumers and repair regulation through a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, it must have been uncomfortable for the Harvard Business School graduate to listen as the President first acknowledged his presence, along with a dozen or so other officials, and then repudiated efforts of those trying to kill or weaken the proposed agency legislation.

Obama singled out the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for their million dollar ad campaign against the CFPA and their decade-long, half a billion dollar lobbying effort to maintain the industry-favoring status quo of ineffective financial regulation.  Just two weeks earlier, Minnick was on the other side of the lectern, urging members of the Chamber to use their "dispropor-tionate opportunity to influence" debate on the legislation and reassuring them that he would work to "get a bill that is as accommodating and sensible for the financial community as we can."

Minnick sits on the House Financial Services Committee which is expected to consider draft legislation for the CFPA this week and favors instead a council composed of existing regulators and lacking the proposed agency's enforcement power.  Curiously though, despite his public opposition to the President's plan and being among those trying to kill or weaken it, Minnick's staff viewed the White House invitation and remarks as a "shout out," noting so on his Facebook page.

Here's an excerpt from the President's speech; find the full text here and the video here.

In a financial system that's never been more complicated, it has never been more important to have a watchdog function like the one we've proposed. And yet, predictably, a lot of the banks and big financial firms don't like the idea of a consumer agency very much. In fact, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is spending millions on an ad campaign to kill it. You might have seen some of these ads -- the ones that claim that local butchers and other small businesses somehow will be harmed by this agency. This is, of course, completely false -- and we've made clear that only businesses that offer financial services would be affected by this agency. I don't know how many of your butchers are offering financial services. (Laughter.)

Contrary to what some have argued, this agency would not restrict consumer choice and innovation. Nothing could be further from the truth. In the past, a lack of clear rules led to innovation of the wrong kind: The firms that did best were the ones who did the best job of hiding the real cost to consumers. We don't want them competing by figuring out how much they can fool ordinary Americans. By contrast, the consumer agency we're proposing would set ground rules so that firms don't have to compete to confuse families, but they have to compete to give them better choices. This will also help small business entrepreneurs who often rely on credit cards and home equity loans to finance their start-up businesses.

All this hasn't stopped the big financial firms and their lobbyists from mobilizing against change. They're doing what they always do -- descending on Congress, using every bit of influence they have to maintain the status quo that has maximized their profits at the expense of American consumers, despite the fact that recently a whole bunch of those same American consumers bailed them out as a consequence of the bad decisions that they made. And since they're worried they may not be able to kill this agency, they're trying their hardest to weaken it -- by asking for exemptions from this agency's rules and enforcement; by fighting to keep every gap and loophole they can find.

They're very good at this, because that's how business has been done in Washington for a very long time. In fact, over the last 10 years, the Chamber alone spent nearly half a billion dollars on lobbying -- half a billion dollars

Comments

[thepoliticalgame]

Leave it to Walt's people to take the invitation as a "shout out"...more like a reality check.

[Serephin]

Minnick and his crew reject your reality, and substitute their own.

[thepoliticalgame]

Hell, sometimes I reject my reality, but thanks for clarifying, Serephin! Your input is deeply appreciated. ;)