The legislative process is irritating and exhausting. Its two steps forward and one step back - on a really good day. The last couple of days have been relatively good days. The two steps forward were on the Defense Authorization bill: Don't Ask Don't Tell is blessedly about to become history, and we got a big boost for the idea of buying American and preserving America's industrial base with the passage of the Fair Defense Competition amendment, which directs the Department of Defense to consider unfair competition from foreign companies when awarding defense contracts. The step backward was on the "jobs" bill, where the deficit hawks are turning the bill into blue smoke and a mirror or two (Reminder to the deficit hawks, from my time as a Clinton advisor: the best way to get rid of deficits is to create a strong economy with full employment).
The biggest legislative news, though, is now behind the scenes: the conference committee negotiations over the banking bill. I am very concerned about a dynamic developing, and I want to beg every progressive activist and writer to stay deeply engaged in this fight. I'm getting the feeling form a lot of people I'm talking to and a lot of posts I'm reading that people are seeing the fight over this bill as pretty much done. The posts I'm reading have a retrospective quality, people speaking in past tense about how the bill is pretty good versus those who say it didn't go far enough, etc. This fight is a very long way from being over, however.
Now it is true that we have already lost some of the most important battles: the big banks are not going to be broken up, a new version of Glass-Steagall is not going into effect, a financial transactions tax is not being imposed, and there are no penalties for companies on excessive compensation for executives. But no one should mistake the fact that there are still some hugely important fights in play: the nature of the Federal Reserve audit, the toughness of derivatives regulation, the language on the Volcker rule, and the independence of the Consumer Protection Agency Elizabeth Warren proposed. Even some of the "side" issues, like the regulation of credit card swipe fees that Dick Durbin got put into the Senate bill, are worth tens of billions of dollars to consumers and small businesses if we can get them passed. (See a great summary on the remaining fights here.)
The things that are still unsettled in the finanicial bill are really, really important. In spite of the big disappointments about what is not in this bill, the fights that are left matter a lot - this entire issue is so central to our economy, and so massive in terms of the economic stakes, that even the relatively small details are really big deals. If we win most of these fights in Conference Committee, and get a bill that is close to the best of the Senate combined with close to the best of the House, that would be some reasonable progress. But if the bank lobbyists succeed at watering down, striking down, carving out loopholes and set-asides in this bill, it could easily become not just mush, but maybe worse then present law in many key areas.
And speaking of the big bank lobbyists, they are everywhere. You can't spit on Capitol Hill or K Street without hitting one of them. They are flooding the zone, trying to overwhelm and out swarm the progressive lobbyists helping on this bill.
I'm begging everyone within range of this blog post: don't fall asleep on this, don't spend your time debating whether what passed the Senate is a good first step or not. We are in the fourth quarter of a tied up game, and the other team has a lot more big name lobbying stars and depth than our beleaguered team. Keep working this one, through Americans for Financial Reform, and Chris Bowers' good work, and all the ways people have been helping so far.
