nuhuh
Gold Member
Former GOP Senator Phil Gramm had a lot to sat when he appeared at the invitation of Republican Congressmen. Perhaps the most ridiculous thing he had to say was his outrage at the lousy $75 million his friend Edward Whitacre got when he retired from AT&T.
“If there’s ever been an exploited worker” it was Whitacre, said Gramm, testifying on the fifth anniversary of passage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill. Gramm appeared genuinely aggrieved by Whitacre’s shabby treatment and literally pounded the table while speaking.
Whitacre actually received a retirement package totaling $158 million.
“If there’s ever been an exploited worker” it was Whitacre, said Gramm, testifying on the fifth anniversary of passage of the Dodd-Frank financial reform bill. Gramm appeared genuinely aggrieved by Whitacre’s shabby treatment and literally pounded the table while speaking.
Whitacre actually received a retirement package totaling $158 million.
Five years after the passage of a sweeping Wall Street reform package in the wake of the worst financial crisis in generations, lawmakers opposed to strict government policing of the financial industry are inviting two prominent deregulators back to the scene of the crime.
When the House Financial Services Committee (HFSC) hears from former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-TX) and longtime conservative analyst Peter Wallison on Tuesday, the pair will have their laissez-faire perspectives on the money business elevated once again.
Gramm will blast Dodd-Frank’s reforms as not just “shackling economic growth” but “imperiling our freedom,” according to a draft copy of his prepared testimony. Gramm’s central theme is the idea that Dodd-Frank created a system of rules that are too arbitrary and too subject to bureaucratic whimsy for bankers to know what they can expect and plan accordingly. But the draft remarks also make room for comparing the law’s creation of in-house regulatory positions at Too Big To Fail banks to the old Soviet Union’s habit of injecting party politics into even the smallest manufacturing concern.
The hearing is entitled “The Dodd-Frank Act Five Years Later: Are We More Prosperous?” The HFSC has been ground zero for efforts to undermine the parts of Dodd-Frank reform that are still in the works and repeal the ones that have gone into effect.
Gramm brings a history of interfering with America’s regulators to Capitol Hill just as lawmakers are trying to use the budget process to tear down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s (CFPB) independence and remake it in the image of other regulators that are more subject to legislator influence. The attack on CFPB structures is just the latest in a long string of maneuvers to sabotage Dodd-Frank reform. House Republicans won repeal of a key provision of the law by inserting an amendment written by Citigroup lobbyists into last winter’s budget compromise. They have under-funded key regulatory agencies for years, weakening the government’s ability to make good on the law’s promises. They have tried to roll back new protections for people who buy mobile homes. Their Senate colleagues have drummed up momentum for rolling back elements of Dodd-Frank reform that would benefit the largest banks under the guise of seeking regulatory relief for small banks. And there are plenty more favors to the industry on tap, if past is prologue. Read the complete article at House Republicans Invite Architect Of The Financial Crisis Over For Advice ThinkProgress