The Good, Bad, and the Ugly in the Financial Reg Bill

Another week, another big disastrous bill being rammed through Congress.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to bring the House-Senate conference report on the Financial Regulation bill to a final vote in the next few days. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid plans to follow quickly with a Senate vote so that President Obama can sign this monstrosity into law before the Fourth of July.

The Dodd-Frank Financial Regulation bill is huge. It has hundreds of provisions—some good and some bad. However, we think that some of the bad provisions are so dangerous that they far outweigh the good parts of the bill.

The larger issue behind this legislation is this: Do you believe that unelected, unaccountable regulators under the President will do a better job of—

1. Deciding which companies should be shut down or nationalized without recourse to bankruptcy, as theTreasury Department and the Federal Reserve would be able to do under this bill?
2. Deciding how easily progressive interest groups—from Big Labor to radical animal rights groups—would be able to get their people onto the ballots of for corporations’ boards, as the SEC would determine?
3. Deciding which creditors to rescue and which to punish when a company goes under, as the FDIC would do?
4. Deciding which financial institutions will pay a new $19 billion tax, as a council of regulators would do under this bill?

Who should make these decisions: bureaucrats or an elected, accountable Congress? Will Congress delegate their responsibility away and give us a business environment that is subject to arbitrary and capricious decisions by regulators?

The Constitution in Article 1 states, “All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States.” Executive agencies should be given specific
criteria to guide them in filling out the details of laws passed by Congress. Barring such clear guidelines, agencies will play Grim Reaper. And selective enforcement does not lead to a stable business environment.

Freedom Action therefore urges you to click here and send an e-mail to your Members of Congress immediately to urge them to vote No on the Financial Regulation bill. Right now, there are not the required 60 votes to pass the bill in the Senate. And it's not clear that there is still a majority for it in the House.

That means that every e-mail and call to Capitol Hill can make a difference. Please click here.

Last week, the House narrowly passed, 219 to 206, the DISCLOSE Act to regulate political speech. THANK YOU to the thousands of Freedom Action members who told their Representatives to vote No on this blatantly unconstitutional abridgement of the first amendment right to free speech. 217 Democrats and 2 Republicans voted Yes. 170 Republicans and 36 Democrats voted No. You can click here, scroll down, and enter your zipcode to see how your Representative voted last Thursday. We hope that the DISCLOSE Act has now been been made so controversial by the public outcry against it that the Senate will not be able to pass it. But we'll keep you posted if (when?) action is needed to stop it in the Senate!

References:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703615104575328993006115992.html

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MmRkZWYwM2Q0OWIyYmFmOTEyYmZjYTBjNDcxODgwYWY

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37924105/ns/business-us_business/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703615104575328993006115992.html