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Guest Post: Congress Sells Out To Wall Street, Again
Originally posted at Represent.us blog,
The U.S. House just passed a bill called H.R. 992 - the Swaps Regulatory Improvement Act - that was literally written by mega-bank lobbyists. It repeals the laws passed in 2010 to prevent another meltdown like the one that crashed our economy in 2008. The repeal was co-sponsored by a former Goldman Sachs executive and passed with bipartisan support from some of the House’s largest recipients of Wall Street cash. It’s so appalling... so unbelievable... so blatantly corrupt... that you’ve got to see it to believe it:
In 2010, Congress passed the “Dodd-Frank” law to clamp down on risky “derivatives trading” that led to the financial collapse of 2008. Dodd-Frank was weakened by banking lobbyists from the start and has been under attack by those lobbyists ever since. Now a new law written by Citigroup lobbyists (we couldn’t make this stuff up if we tried) exempts derivatives trading from regulation, and was passed this week by the House of Representatives with broad bipartisan support.
It sounds bad… but don’t worry, it gets much, much worse:
- The New York Times reports that 70 of the 85 lines in the new House bill were literally written by Citigroup lobbyists (Citigroup was one of the mega-banks that brought our economy to its knees in 2008 and received billions in taxpayer money.)
- The same report also revealed “two crucial paragraphs…were copied nearly word for word.” You can even view the original documents and see how Citigroup’s lobbyists redrafted the House Bill, striking out ideas they didn’t like and replacing them with ones they did.
- The bills are sponsored by Randy Hultgren (R – IL), and co-sponsored by Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) and others. Himes is a former Goldman Sachs executive, and chief fundraiser for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
- Maplight reports that the financial industry is the top source of campaign funding for 6 of the bills’ 8 cosponsors.
- Maplight’s data shows that members of the House received $22,425,740 million from interest groups that support the bill — that’s 5.8 times more than it received from interest groups opposed.
- “House aides, when asked why Democrats would vote for this proposal even though the Obama administration opposes it, offered a political explanation. Republicans have enough votes to pass it themselves, so vulnerable House Democrats might as well join them, and collect industry money for their campaigns.” — New York Times
Yep, it’s actually that bad. For the full story, check out this revealing piece by Represent.Us Communications Director Mansur Gidfar. You can also find out if your Rep. voted for H.R.992 here.
We elect Representatives to the House to represent us, the people — but both parties now refuse to do the job we elected them to do. And they won’t until we force them to. The American Anti-Corruption Act would stop this corruption, and Represent.Us is the movement behind the Act. Together, we can make blatant corruption illegal with simple reforms. It’s common sense that elected officials should be barred from collecting money from the industries they regulate.
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Vote them out! They just voted in two more in tonight.
Naw all you can do is run and hide.
Yes, as demonstrated by the elections last night, the Americans continue to vote handouts and will give up thier rights and money fro freebies from Uncle Sap!
The Roberts Court would cancel such legislation. You are wasting your time.
I always liked the idea of congresscritters having to wear Nascar uniforms and drive cars painted with the logs of their sponsors. I'm sure that would,t shame them (since they are shameless) but it would be a good start. We deserve the system we support and this is it.
How is this not a top story?
I laughed when I read this. I got several down votes the other day for saying Repubicans are in the pocket of Big Biz. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think the repubicans are in charge of the House.
And yes I know democraps are too but you guy's pretty much steal my thunder on that 24/7/365. heh
We all need to realize there's little difference between the two parties. The sooner we all do that, the better.
Captured.
And the fucking partisan twits in the us electorate remain at each others throats.
awesome. dodd frank was a piece of shit law written by criminals for criminals. it prevented nothing....oh, wait, it did work to prevent small banks and small financial entities (mortgage brokers,etc) from succeeding. Everything that is being done now is to squash the little guy.
however, what they're doing now is making the toothless-to-big-banks law even more toothless.
when will folks say enough.
finally, democrats are not innocent, or better, or anything. they're wholly corrupt...as are repubs. so, enough of that drivel, please.
Corrupt? bank owned?!
I'm SHAWKED.