[...] In fact, the president is on track to spend more on defense, in real dollars, than any other president has in one term of office since WWII. In that time we’ve had Korea, Vietnam, the massive military buildup under Reagan, and Bush’s funded-by-tax-cuts invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, but in the most trying economic times since the Depression, Obama’s out-gunning them all. This is not about ignoring the threats to our national security. And it’s certainly not about pacifism. [...] Even after cutting billions, (Lawrence Korb) points out, the defense budget would remain significantly higher, in real dollars, than it was at the height of the Reagan build-up. [...] – Guns vs. Butter 2010
Our financial lives depend on serious financial regulation being implemented. But you simply cannot talk about our country becoming fiscally sound until you address our gluttonous defense industry, which SecDef Gates has tried to tackle, meeting much push back from the Pentagon pork crowd, aided by their right-wing enablers in both parties.
Pres. Obama will get a win on the financial regulation of Wall Street bill making it’s way through the Senate. Republicans can’t afford to be caught on the other side of this issue, especially in an election year, as I’ve been saying for weeks. However, whether you can actually call it “reform” is another matter all together.
In a piece on Pres. Obama’s speech at Cooper Union, Dylan Ratigan got down to it.
The Good: The president had strong language for backing real derivative reforms.
The Bad: Vague language about the “Volcker rule” will not stop Too Big To Fail; but a plan like this (or even one like this) for breaking up the current mega-banks and limiting their liabilities will.
The Missing: NONE of this matters while our cops still work for the crooks.
Let’s remember that Barack Obama received more campaign funds from Goldman Sachs than any presidential candidate in history. Let’s also remember that both Democratic and Republican politicians are on the take from the big banks. That’s our politics, which is on the trajectory to continue diminishing the stature of our democratic republic, because we’re hemorrhaging money. I don’t anticipate the new “reform” bill will change this, though to be fair the Dodd bill does invoke the “Volker Rule.”
However, since the financial regulation won’t specifically address too big to fail we won’t get where we need to be. No one seems to know how to go about breaking up the big banks. Some powerful interests simply don’t want to.
Enter Larry Summers, who last night on “The News Hour” said just that (via email):
(starts @ 4:45 in video)
Brown: The too big to fail issue, why not go further? Why not just limit the size of banks?
Summers: Jeff, that was the approach America took to banking before the depression. That was the approach America took to lending in the thrift sector, before we had the S&L crisis. Most observers who study this believe that to try to break banks up into a lot of little pieces would hurt our ability to serve large companies, and hurt the competitiveness of the United States. But that’s not the important issue, they believe that it would actually make us less stable. Because the individual banks would be less diversified, and therefore at greater risk of failing because they wouldn’t have profits in one area to turn to when a different area got in trouble. And most observers believe that dealing with the simultaneous failure of many small institutions would actually generate more need for bailouts and reliance on taxpayers than the current economic environment.
Whenever I watch Dylan Ratigan these days it reminds me of Bill Maher talking with Jessie Ventura last Friday. When talking about our choices in politicians, Ventura said that if American voters had a choice of Democrats, Republicans or “none of the above” on the ballot, “none of the above” would win.
Many would agree, though you have to give it to Rep. Allan Grayson when it comes to his dogged fight against what’s happening on Wall Street, but also what politicians are doing to abet it.
The Wall Street reform bill headed for a test vote on the Senate floor Monday night will allow the Federal Reserve to continue to pump trillions of dollars into major banks largely in secrecy, the co-author of House language that would open the central bank to an audit charged in a memo to the Senate. “The Senate has a provision in its reform bill that purports to audit the Fed. But, it really doesn’t do anything of the sort. I’m going to run down the details for you, and reprint the legislative language so you can read it yourself,” writes Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.). – Dodd Bill Would Allow Fed To Hide Its Spending
Ryan Grimm of Huffington Post got a hold of a memo from Rep. Alan Grayson on the Senate Bill. He’s got the full language, but below I offer a salient section:
Federal Reserve Secrecy
- In the Senate version, all audits must remain redacted. The GAO can’t even tell Congress to whom the Fed is lending money, the amounts it is lending, or any details about collateral or assets held in connection with any credit facility.
- The GAO can never release a full version of any audit unless the Federal Reserve first chooses to shut down the audited credit facility.
- Once the Federal Reserve shuts down the authority for the credit facility, the GAO still has to wait a year before it can release details about that facility. If the Fed simply chooses to stop making loans, but does not eliminate the authority to make loans, the GAO has to wait three years before it can release a full report. The Fed can at any point during this period choose to restart the facility, and thereby prevent the release of a full report.
To add further injury to Democratic bipartisanship fetishism, rumors are swirling that the majority is going to fall for this trap yet again, this time on financial regulation.
However, beyond what’s in front of our face is a larger problem than financial regulation. It’s part of why I spotlighted Sarah Palin’s ridiculous defense of the F-22. If we don’t get a hold of our defense budget and our irrational military exuberance none of the regulatory rules in the world will save us.
Our involvement in Afghanistan is now a three decade-long misadventure, with our current mission trying to make up for the disaster the last Republican president left us, which began under another Republican president, Ronald Reagan. Since Karzai’s corrupt re-election, the mission has become very hard to defend, regardless of the moral obligation in which it began under Barack Obama. When I read stories that invoke “jobs” in Afghanistan being our responsibility, it’s not too extreme to say it makes me want to disengage there immediately.
Read Arianna Huffington, who has written a very important essay on the matter today. Start by guessing who said this?
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”
It’s the same Republican who warned us when he left office about the military industrial complex, which along with the crooks on Wall Street are taking us to our knees.
None of the Above 2010/2012!
Yeah, that seems to be the consensus in my email inbox, too.
I respect the “this is NOT reform” argument on HCR, although I don’t agree with it. But the argument that the Senate bill is not real financial reform is totally baseless. Hence the lack of sound and fury from the usual suspects. Much as they might want to, neither ideological faction can really assail this bill. The compromises, such as they are, make sense and are not simply the product of crass legislative horsetrading. (Yes, even the provisions Grayson points to, which he’s misreading.) But the resolution authority, the Volcker rule, the derivatives trading provisions etc. all combine to make this a very, very good bill. And the prospect that it will pass by a solid, bipartisan majority is just the icing on the cake.
The remonstrators and the nattering nabobs of negativism are doing their best to convince us otherwise. But the record of accomplishment is growing by the day, quite literally, and it speaks for itself. As of the passage of this bill, it will be quite substantial. It will be all the more so if he gets immigration reform and/or climate change passed. Either way, it’s a record he can take to voters this November with pride, and it’s the reason the rumors of Democrats’ deaths this election season are greatly exaggerated.
Pardon me while I brush the dirt off the man’s shoulder. He is getting his pimpin’ on!!!
LMAO. I see the Obama cult has showed up to shovel the apologiz.
LOL. I’m in such a good mood, I won’t even begrudge you that shot. The truth is liberating. Plus, it’s Friday!
No, apologia is liberating for you apparently as is your right.
I’ll even grant you that one! LOL.
You know, GA6thDem, reminds me of the primaries, when they used to show up to push back against anything critical about Obama.
The professional Obama contingent is doing it again whenever any criticism is launched against him, especially on SCOTUS.
The perpetual O campaign.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/16/elena-kagan-defense-leave_n_540969.html
On Wednesday, the Huffington Post learned, former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, who is leading outreach efforts around the upcoming court vacancy, reached out to progressive allies to dismiss a critical article written about Kagan. The article, authored by Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald, attacked the former Harvard Law School dean for her expansive interpretation of executive powers. Dunn’s response, however, focused on a much narrower Greenwald critique — that Kagan didn’t have sufficient experience and lacked an extensive written record, having never been a sitting judge.
It’s worse than the primaries. It reminds me of the Bushbots who were still attacking kerry in 2005 well after the election was over. It’s the same thing—they know Obama is a huge mistake but just can’t bring themselves to admit it just like the Bushbots couldn’t admit that Bush was a huge mistake and they knew it. They are literally trashing every President back to FDR to make excuses for Obama. Their “soft racism” i call it is showing.
Glad your so impressed Ogenec,hope to see you at the polls in November. It’s going to be very lonely I have a feeling. Several unnamed sources on the hill are saying that Nov will be a disaster since they are loosing the base that they will need to win. All do to Obama’s dithering on a host of topics. See what David Mixner is writing today….It’s quite eye opening… I guess you don’t win without your urban gay and lesbian base who frankly are over Obama.
I’m sure you’re right. A lot of people are disaffected. And I’m not saying that there is no basis for it. As I said, I understand the arguments to some extent. I just don’t agree with them.
The larger point for me is that, regardless of how pretty or ugly the games have been, Obama is racking up the wins. Success begets success, and he has HCR, nuclear treaty, student loan reform already accomplished. Financial reform will soon follow suit. If we are lucky, so might immigration reform and/or climate change. Meanwhile, economy is turning around, and it looks like the taxpayers might even turn a profit on TARP. That is an impressive record, and any President would be happy to run on it.
Which is not to say November won’t be ugly. It will be. Just not as bad as many have supposed. Dems will retain both houses, and we’ll press on to the rest of the legislative agenda.
You can best believe I’ll be at the polls. My whole crew, too.
You are buying into the spin that passing crap will make people happy. He’s passed those things and he’s spent tons of time patting himself on the back telling everyone how great he is while ignoring the fact that he’s passing legislation that is UNWANTED by the majority of the public.
It’s not spin, and I don’t have to “buy” into anything. We can debate whether HCR was, on balance, good for the American people. I say yes; you probably say no. Fair enough. That debate will rage on, as it should. There are facts on either side of the ledger.
But the other things I mentioned are entirely different. The financial reform legislation does everything it should. Student loan reform cuts unnecessary middlemen out of financing education (and simultaneously gives the lie to the “corporatist” trope). And the nuclear reductions are a significant step in the strategy to make the world a safer place and push for sanctions on Iran.
These are all things I very much want. A lot of people want them. I’m not trying to convince you that you should want them. But I am happy as heck to have them, and I feel no compunction to hide my delight for the sake of a few Eeyores.
The only thing I can say is that you obviously have very low standards for Obama as he has for himself. Delivering crap legislation is apparently okay with you. His supporters have so much soft racism it’s amazing.
“The only thing I can say is that you obviously have very low standards for Obama as he has for himself.”
_________________
Au contraire, mon frere. I have very high standards. For instance, I hate fractured syntax. Quotes like the one above drive me absolutely nuts.
I also hate name calling. Actually, it’s more of a guilty pleasure; if the name caller is creative enough, and I’m in the right mind, I will return fire. But “cultist,” “apologist,” and “racist” aren’t nearly enough motivation for me. Dig out your thesaurus, and try harder. Then again, since I’m still in a really good mood, it probably wouldn’t make a difference if you did. Sorry….
I am, however, happy to talk about details of passed, or pending, legislation. All day long, in fact. But since your critiques consist only of calling some unnamed legislation “crap,” it’s impossible to engage.
So I’ll leave you with a final thought. I’m attracted to the complexity of life and its sundry meanings. I’m not particularly interested in the categorical nature of a right/wrong dialectic. In “Life in Marvelous Times,” Mos Def says that “we are alive in amazing times.” He means that in both the superlative and the incredulous sense of the word. As Vijay Prashad says, in reference to the same song, “[t]his is a moment marked both by seemingly intractable political stalemates and by possibilities for large-scale transformation; by dispossession, displacement and unchecked accumulation and by new mobilities, movements and coalitions which seek to counter those formations; and by the incivility of political discourse and by the widespread acknowledgment of the fraudulent nature of those discourses and their claim to represent “public” good. We marvel at the horror; we marvel at the possibility. We marvel at the crisis, the beauty, the apathy, and the critical potential.”
That’s the kind of debate I’m interested in exploring. And that’s why I’m immune to your charms.
Keep touting that impressive record. Surely that will help disaffected voters’ eyes glaze over in November long enough to confuse “success for Obama” with the Ds delivering on the domestic agenda for the American people.
I most certainly shall.
Guess I’m somewhere between ogenec and WTV.
Obama clearly knows how to make tea
just seems to always be a little weak for my tastes
Iceblinkjm says:
23 April 2010 at 4:11 pm
Same as it ever was: see 1994
“I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a moneyed aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.” Thomas Jefferson
JimK, you made my day.
Ogenec
I have discussed the legislation with you and all you want to do is continually make excuses for Obama. You never answered my question about Stupak anyway—he didn’t even need that vote but he completely caved anyway didn’t he? You see you made excuses for Obama owing to your low standards for him instead of pushing him to do the right thing. You’re in good company in teh blogosphere though. It’s full of his apologists.
Alienating disaffected voters even more than they already are seems to be the plan. After all, the more seats the Ds lose in November, the easier it is for Obama to continue wringing his hands and saying he’d really love to do XYZ but those pesky Rs won’t let him. Win-win for Obama no matter what happens, and that’s the bottom line.