Sunday, May 26, 2013

LA RAZA SUPREMACIST TO GIVE MORE JOBS TO ILLEGALS Rand Paul open to voting for Senate immigration bill - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room

Paul open to voting for Senate immigration bill - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room


CONGRESS DECLARES THAT ILLEGALS SAP TAX DOLLARS… SO THEN WHAT WOULD 40 MILLION LEGALIZED MEXICAN LOOTERS DO THEN??? VOTE GOP?

CONGRESS DECLARES ILLEGALS SAP TAX DOLLARS - Guess Amnesty is only to keep wages depressed and buy the votes of 40 million "unregistered dems" which will help destroy the GOP


CONGRESS DECLARES ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS A DRAIN… THE SOLUTION? AMNESTY FOR 40 MILLION MEX FLAG WAVERS WILL KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED AND DESTROY THE GOP. OBAMA BUILDS HIS LA RAZA SUPREMACY DICTATORSHIP WITH AS MUCH EASE AS THE LIES HE TELLS ON NON-EXISTENT BORDER SECURITY.

 THE HERTIGAGE FOUNDATION DECLARED THAT MEXICO’S LOOTING AFTER THE OBAMA – McCAIN BLANKET AMNESTY WOULD COST AMERICANS NOT ONLY OUR JOBS, BUT ALSO $7 TRILLION DOLLARS.

SOME HAVE DISUPTED THAT FIGURE. MOSTLY JUST MEXICO, OBAMA AND THE LA RAZA SUPREMACY PARTY. CA ALONE PUTS OUT $22 BILLION PER YEAR IN SOCIAL SERVICES TO ILLEGALS ON THE STATE LEVEL. LOS ANGELES COUNTY PAYS OUT $600 MILLION PER YEAR IN WELFARE TO ILLEGALS, PRIMARILY ANCHOR BABY BREEDERS. NO MATTER WHO DOES THE MATH, THE COST OF MEXICO’S LOOTING AND THE LA RAZA WELFARE STATE IS STAGGERING.

 MEXICO'S LOOTING, WELFARE STATE AND LA RAZA DEM PARTY HAS NOW SPREAD ACROSS AMERICA JUST AS THE MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS HAVE.


The report says that in 1990, 90 percent of undocumented immigrants primarily were in six states: California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Texas.
Illegal immigrants drain the tax dollars

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Congressional study shows illegal immigrants sap tax dollars

The Business Journal of Phoenix - by Ty Young Phoenix Business Journal
A study by the U.S. Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday backs up the view that undocumented immigrants sap more tax dollars than they provide, especially in education, health care and law enforcement.

The study pulled together reports from the past five years, using data from sources including the Pew Hispanic Center, the Rand Corp., the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and various universities. The Congressional study also incorporated facts from states, including Arizona, but its authors acknowledged there was no aggregate estimate that could be applied to the entire country.


The report says that in 1990, 90 percent of undocumented immigrants primarily were in six states: California, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and Texas.

By 2004, undocumented immigrants had increased tenfold in other states, most notably Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee, according to statistics from the Pew Hispanic Center.

The report estimates there are 12 million undocumented immigrants nationwide. Of those, 60 percent are uninsured and 50 percent of the children are uninsured. Again using 2004 statistics from the Pew Hispanic Center the average income of undocumented immigrants was $27,400 while Americans earned $47,800. The difference puts undocumented immigrants in a lower tax bracket, thus reducing the amount of federal and state income taxes generated.

The study also showed that while undocumented workers represented just 5 percent of state and federal service costs, their tax revenue did not offset the amount spent by government. The authors of the study stated that, "the general consensus is that unauthorized immigrants impose a net cost on state and local budgets. However, no agreement exists as to the size of, or even the best way of measuring, that cost at a national level."

In education, which the study notes is the largest single expenditure in state and local budgets, multiple states reported 20 to 40 percent higher costs educating non-English speaking students, many of whom come from the homes of undocumented immigrant parents. Using New Mexico statistics from 2004 as a model, education spending on undocumented immigrants comprised $67 million of the state's $3 billion education budget.

The study estimates there are 53.3 million school-age children in the U.S., 2 million of whom are undocumented immigrants and another 3 million who are legal citizens, but whose parents are not.

Undocumented immigrants are more likely to access emergency rooms and urgent care facilities because most do not have health care, the study said. In Arizona and other border areas, states paid nearly $190 million in health care costs for undocumented immigrants in 2000, the study reported. The amount, which the study says likely has risen since then, represented one-quarter of all uncompensated health care costs in those states that year.

While the report found that undocumented immigrants are less likely to be incarcerated than American natives, it said states still bear a large cost for the legal process. Based on a report from the U.S./Mexico Border Counties Coalition from 2001, counties from the four states that border Mexico spent more than $108 million on law enforcement activities involving undocumented immigrants. San Diego County in California spent nearly half of that, with more than $50 million going into law enforcement activities involving undocumented immigrants.
 
THE MEXICAN INVASION AND EVER EXPANDING WELFARE STATE IN OUR BORDERS:



By  Robert Rector   .............Heritage.org | May 16, 2006 (DOUBLE THE FIGURES NOW)

(dated figures THE LA RAZA DEMS HAVE EXPANDED THE MEXICAN OCCUPATION FOR CHEAP LABOR IN CALIFORNIA ENOUGH TO ALONE DOUBLE THESE FIGURES!

VISIT HERITAGE.org for more info on Mexican invasion and occupation

This paper focuses on the net fiscal effects of immigration with particular emphasis on the fiscal effects of low skill immigration. The fiscal effects of immigration are only one aspect of the impact of immigration. Immigration also has social, political, and economic effects. In particular, the economic effects of immigration have been heavily researched with differing results. These economic effects lie beyond the scope of this paper. Overall, immigration is a net fiscal positive to the government’s budget in the long run: the taxes immigrants pay exceed the costs of the services they receive. However, the fiscal impact of immigrants varies strongly according to immigrants’ education level. College-educated immigrants are likely to be strong contributors to the government’s finances, with their taxes exceeding the government’s costs. By contrast, immigrants with low education levels are likely to be a fiscal drain on other taxpayers. This is important because half of all adult illegal immigrants in the U.S. have less than a high school education. In addition, recent immigrants have high levels of out-of-wedlock childbearing, which increases welfare costs and poverty. An immigration plan proposed by Senators Mel Martinez (R-FL) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE) would provide amnesty to 9 to 10 million illegal immigrants and put them on a path to citizenship (THERE ARE PROBABLY NEARLY 40 MILLION ILLEGALS HERE NOW). Once these individuals become citizens, the net additional cost to the federal government of benefits for these individuals will be around $16 billion per year. Further, once an illegal immigrant becomes a citizen, he has the right to bring his parents to live in the U.S. The parents, in turn, may become citizens. The long-term cost of government benefits to the parents of 10 million recipients of amnesty could be $30 billion per year or more (CALIFORNIA PUTS OUT $20 BILLION A YEAR IN SOCIAL SERVICES OF ILLEGALS).

 In the long run, the Hagel/Martinez bill, if enacted, would be the largest expansion of the welfare state in 35 years.


THE LA RAZA “THE RACE” MEXICAN LOOTERS: OBAMA’S PARTY BASE of ILLEGALS… really want to hand 40 million of these people LA RAZA SUPREMACY and LEGALIZED LOOTING in our borders? THE DEMOCRAT PARTY DOES!


OBAMA SABOTAGES OUR HOMELAND SECURITY TO BUILD HIS LA RAZA PARTY BASE of ILLEGALS... WHAT DID EISENHOWER DO? 

OBAMA’S AMNESTY FOR LEGALIZED MEXICAN LOOTING, THE RISE of LA RAZA FASCISM IN AMERICA (funded by Obama) and the GROWING OBAMA DICTATORSHIP… what would President Eisenhower, who lead the nation to fight against German Fascism before it climbed our borders, think of Obama, America’s biggest threat since WWII?

 
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/05/obama-la-raza-fascism-and-open-borders.html

 
OBAMA PARTNERS WITH NARCOMEX TO OPEN BORDERS WIDER... HERE THEY COME! THE NEW DEMS JUMPING OUR BORDERS, JOBS AND VOTING BOOTHS!
 

HOW OBAMA’S AMNESTY HOAX DESTROYED the GOP and BUILT the LA RAZA MEXICAN FASCIST WELFARE STATE IN AMERICA.

WHAT WOULD AMERICANS THINK IF THEY KNEW ABOUT OBAMA’S TIES TO LA RAZA SUPREMACIST PARTY, WHICH HE FUNDS WITH AMERICAN TAX DOLLARS AND OPERERATES OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE UNDER CECILIA MUNOZ?


JUDICIAL WATCH:

It proves the Obama administration is willing to go to any extent - including gaming the courts - to continue stonewalling the full story of its lawless release of illegal aliens. Now, with the prison floodgates being thrown open to illegal aliens under the phony pretense of abiding by sequester cuts, it is more important that details of this threat to the public safety be revealed.

 

A week later, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said the immigration bill was “far worse” than ObamaCare: He described the bill as an attempt by Senate Democrats “to establish another monolithic voting bloc” among Hispanic Americans.

 

*

THE DEMOCRATS’ AMNESTY HOAX: DESTRUCTION OF THE GOP, THE AMERICAN MIDDLE CLASS AND 40 MILLION “UNREGISTERED DEMS” VOTING FOR MORE LA RAZA SUPREMACY AND LOOTING OF AMERICA.


"Remember 187 -- the Proposition to deny taxpayer funds for services to non-citizens --- was the last gasp of white America in California." --- Art Torres, Chairman of the California Democratic Party… NOW THE PARTY for LA RAZA SUPREMACY… do a search for Barack Obama and LA RAZA.

A week later, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) said the immigration bill was “far worse” than ObamaCare: He described the bill as an attempt by Senate Democrats “to establish another monolithic voting bloc” among Hispanic Americans.


2/3S OF ALL JOBS UNDER OBAMA GO TO IMMIGRANTS, BOTH LEGAL AND ILLEGAL!
SOCIOPATH OBAMA – ALL HIS WARS ARE TO PROTECT THE BORDERS OF THE MUSLIM DICTATORS HE PROPS UP ON OUR TAX DOLLARS, EVEN WHILE HE SABOTAGES OUR BORDERS WITH NARCOMEX TO BUILD THE DEMS’ PARTY BASE OF ILLEGALS…. AND THEY GET ALL THE JOBS, WELFARE AND OBAMACARE!
 
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/05/what-has-fucker-obama-done-all-jobs-go.html

 
CONGRESS DECLARES ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS A DRAIN… THE SOLUTION? AMNESTY FOR 40 MILLION MEX FLAG WAVERS WILL KEEP WAGES DEPRESSED AND DESTROY THE GOP. OBAMA BUILDS HIS LA RAZA SUPREMACY DICTATORSHIP WITH AS MUCH EASE AS THE LIES HE TELLS ON NON-EXISTENT BORDER SECURITY.

 THE HERTIGAGE FOUNDATION DECLARED THAT MEXICO’S LOOTING AFTER THE OBAMA – McCAIN BLANKET AMNESTY WOULD COST AMERICANS NOT ONLY OUR JOBS, BUT ALSO $7 TRILLION DOLLARS.

SOME HAVE DISUPTED THAT FIGURE. MOSTLY JUST MEXICO, OBAMA AND THE LA RAZA SUPREMACY PARTY. CA ALONE PUTS OUT $22 BILLION PER YEAR IN SOCIAL SERVICES TO ILLEGALS ON THE STATE LEVEL. LOS ANGELES COUNTY PAYS OUT $600 MILLION PER YEAR IN WELFARE TO ILLEGALS, PRIMARILY ANCHOR BABY BREEDERS. NO MATTER WHO DOES THE MATH, THE COST OF MEXICO’S LOOTING AND THE LA RAZA WELFARE STATE IS STAGGERING.


 

Congress - Wall Street's Whore House in D.C. - SPOTLIGHT ON REP. JIM HINES - A $2 BUCK SLUT FOR BANKS


THE BANKS ALL BUT DESTROYED THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, AND DID DESTROY THE LIFE SAVINGS OF MILLIONS OF AMERICANS WHOSE WEALTH WAS TIED UP IN THEIR HOME… THANKS TO THE BANKSTER-OWNED PRESIDENT, THEIR PROFITS AND CRIMES ARE SOARING.

CONGRESS – HOUSE OF WHORES FOR BANKSTERS!

dems… party for illegals and criminal banksters! but then, isn’t what the GOP is also?

demands immense amount of fund-raisers by its legislators,” said Representative Jim Himes, a third-term Democrat of Connecticut, who supported the recent industry-backed bills and leads the party’s fund-raising effort in the House. A member of the Financial Services Committee and a former banker at Goldman Sachs, he is one of the top recipients of Wall Street donations. “It’s appalling, it’s disgusting, it’s wasteful and it opens the possibility of conflicts of interest and corruption. It’s unfortunately the world we live in.”

http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/05/rep-jim-hines-confessed-bankster-owned.html


ONE OF JIM HINES FELLOW BANKSTER DEMS, BARACK OBAMA:

assault on America – THE OBAMA – JP MORGAN LOOTING of a nation


DID OBAMA PUNKED US OR IS HE SIMPLY A  FAILED PRESIDENCY?... he sure enough didn't fail his criminal bankster donors! he's kept them high and dry and out of prisons!

OBAMA, THE MAN THAT NEVER VOTED DURING THE BRIEF PERIOD HE WAS IN THE SENATE, OWNED AND OPERATED BY BIG BANKSTERS, IS NOTHING BUT A CON JOB CALLED “CHANGE”… OR DICTATOR IN THE MAKING.


EITHER WAY HE IS THE MOST FAILED PRESIDENCY IN MODERN AMERICAN HISTORY.

 

Rep. Jim Hines - A confessed Bankster-owned Slut for Obama's Big Banks


THE BANKS ALL BUT DESTROYED THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, AND DID DESTROY THE LIFE SAVINGS OF MILLIONS OF AMERICANS WHOSE WEALTH WAS TIED UP IN THEIR HOME… THANKS TO THE BANKSTER-OWNED PRESIDENT, THEIR PROFITS AND CRIMES ARE SOARING.

CONGRESS – HOUSE OF WHORES FOR BANKSTERS!

dems… party for illegals and criminal banksters! but then, isn’t what the GOP is also?

demands immense amount of fund-raisers by its legislators,” said Representative Jim Himes, a third-term Democrat of Connecticut, who supported the recent industry-backed bills and leads the party’s fund-raising effort in the House. A member of the Financial Services Committee and a former banker at Goldman Sachs, he is one of the top recipients of Wall Street donations. “It’s appalling, it’s disgusting, it’s wasteful and it opens the possibility of conflicts of interest and corruption. It’s unfortunately the world we live in.”

May 23, 2013, 9:44 pm

Banks’ Lobbyists Help in Drafting Financial Bills


WASHINGTON — Bank lobbyists are not leaving it to lawmakers to draft legislation that softens financial regulations. Instead, the lobbyists are helping to write it themselves.

One bill that sailed through the House Financial Services Committee this month — over the objections of the Treasury Department — was essentially Citigroup’s, according to e-mails reviewed by The New York Times. The bill would exempt broad swathes of trades from new regulation.

In a sign of Wall Street’s resurgent influence in Washington, Citigroup’s recommendations were reflected in more than 70 lines of the House committee’s 85-line bill. Two crucial paragraphs, prepared by Citigroup in conjunction with other Wall Street banks, were copied nearly word for word. (Lawmakers changed two words to make them plural.)

The lobbying campaign shows how, three years after Congress passed the most comprehensive overhaul of regulation since the Depression, Wall Street is finding Washington a friendlier place.

The cordial relations now include a growing number of Democrats in both the House and the Senate, whose support the banks need if they want to roll back parts of the 2010 financial overhaul, known as Dodd-Frank.

This legislative push is a second front, with Wall Street’s other battle being waged against regulators who are drafting detailed rules allowing them to enforce the law.

And as its lobbying campaign steps up, the financial industry has doubled its already considerable giving to political causes. The lawmakers who this month supported the bills championed by Wall Street received twice as much in contributions from financial institutions compared with those who opposed them, according to an analysis of campaign finance records performed by MapLight, a nonprofit group.

In recent weeks, Wall Street groups also held fund-raisers for lawmakers who co-sponsored the bills. At one dinner Wednesday night, corporate executives and lobbyists paid up to $2,500 to dine in a private room of a Greek restaurant just blocks from the Capitol with Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, Democrat of New York, a co-sponsor of the bill championed by Citigroup.

Industry officials acknowledged that they played a role in drafting the legislation, but argued that the practice was common in Washington. Some of the changes, they say, have gained wide support, including from Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman. The changes, they added, were in an effort to reach a compromise over the bills, not to undermine Dodd-Frank.

“We will provide input if we see a bill and it is something we have interest in,” said Kenneth E. Bentsen Jr., a former lawmaker turned Wall Street lobbyist, who now serves as president of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, or Sifma.

The close ties hardly surprise Wall Street critics, who have long warned that the banks — whose small armies of lobbyists include dozens of former Capitol Hill aides — possess outsize influence in Washington.

“The huge machinery of Wall Street information and analysis skews the thinking of Congress,” said Jeff Connaughton, who has been both a lobbyist and Congressional staff member.

Lawmakers who supported the industry-backed bills said they did so because the effort was in the public interest. Yet some agreed that the relationship with corporate groups was at times uncomfortable.

“I won’t dispute for one second the problems of a system that demands immense amount of fund-raisers by its legislators,” said Representative Jim Himes, a third-term Democrat of Connecticut, who supported the recent industry-backed bills and leads the party’s fund-raising effort in the House. A member of the Financial Services Committee and a former banker at Goldman Sachs, he is one of the top recipients of Wall Street donations. “It’s appalling, it’s disgusting, it’s wasteful and it opens the possibility of conflicts of interest and corruption. It’s unfortunately the world we live in.”

The passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, which took aim at culprits of the financial crisis like lax mortgage lending and the $700 trillion derivatives market, ushered in a new phase of Wall Street lobbying. Over the last three years, bank lobbyists have blitzed the regulatory agencies writing rules under Dodd-Frank, chipping away at some regulations.

But the industry lobbyists also realized that Congress can play a critical role in the campaign to mute Dodd-Frank.

The House Financial Services Committee has been a natural target. Not only is it controlled by Republicans, who had opposed Dodd-Frank, but freshmen lawmakers are often appointed to the unusually large committee because it is seen as a helpful base from which they can raise campaign funds.

For Wall Street, the committee is a place to push back against Dodd-Frank. When banks and other corporations, for example, feared that regulators would demand new scrutiny of derivatives trades, they appealed to the committee. At the time, regulators were completing Dodd-Frank’s overhaul of derivatives, contracts that allow companies to either speculate in the markets or protect against risk. Derivatives had pushed the insurance giant American International Group to the brink of collapse in 2008. The question was whether regulators would exempt certain in-house derivatives trades between affiliates of big banks.

As the House committee was drafting a bill that would force regulators to exempt many such trades, corporate lawyers like Michael Bopp weighed in with their suggested changes, according to e-mails reviewed by The Times. At one point, when a House aide sent a potential compromise to Mr. Bopp, he replied with additional tweaks.

In an interview, Mr. Bopp explained that he drafted the proposal at the request of Congressional aides, who expressed broad support for the change. The proposal, he explained, was a “compromise” that was actually designed to “limit the scope” of the exemption.

“Everyone on the Hill wanted this bill, but they wanted to make sure it wasn’t subject to abuse,” said Mr. Bopp, a partner at the law firm Gibson, Dunn who was representing a coalition of nonfinancial corporations that use derivatives to hedge their risk.

Ultimately, the committee inserted every word of Mr. Bopp’s suggestion into a 2012 version of the bill that passed the House, save for a slight change in phrasing. A later iteration of the bill, passed by the House committee earlier this month, also included some of the same wording.

And when federal regulators in April released a rule governing such trades, it was significantly less demanding than the industry had feared, a decision that the industry partly attributed to pressure stemming from Capitol Hill.

Citigroup and other major banks used a similar approach on another derivatives bill. Under Dodd-Frank, banks must push some derivatives trading into separate units that are not backed by the government’s insurance fund. The goal was to isolate this risky trading.

The provision exempted many derivatives from the requirement, but some Republicans proposed striking the so-called push out provision altogether. After objections were raised about the Republican plan, Citigroup lobbyists sent around the bank’s own compromise proposal that simply exempted a wider array of derivatives. That recommendation, put forth in late 2011, was largely part of the bill approved by the House committee on May 7 and is now pending before both the Senate and the House.

Citigroup executives said the change they advocated was good for the financial system, not just the bank.

“This view is shared not just by the industry but from leaders such as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke,” said Molly Millerwise Meiners, a Citigroup spokeswoman.

Industry executives said that the changes — which were drafted in consultation with other major industry banks — will make the financial system more secure, as the derivatives trading that takes place inside the bank is subject to much greater scrutiny.

Representative Maxine Waters, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, was among the few Democrats opposing the change, echoing the concerns of consumer groups.

“The bill restores the public subsidy to exotic Wall Street activities,” said Marcus Stanley, the policy director of Americans for Financial Reform, a nonprofit group.

But most of the Democrats on the committee, along with 31 Republicans, came to the industry’s defense, including the seven freshmen Democrats — most of whom have started to receive donations this year from political action committees of Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and other financial institutions, records show.

Six days after the vote, several freshmen Democrats were in New York to meet with bank executives, a tour organized by Representative Joe Crowley, who helps lead the House Democrats’ fund-raising committee. The trip was planned before the votes, and was not a fund-raiser, but it gave the lawmakers a chance to meet with Wall Street’s elite.

In addition to a tour of Goldman’s Lower Manhattan headquarters, and a meeting with Lloyd C. Blankfein, the bank’s chief executive, the lawmakers went to JPMorgan’s Park Avenue office. There, they chatted with Jamie Dimon, the bank’s chief, about Dodd-Frank and immigration reform.

The bank chief also delivered something of a pep talk.

“America has the widest, deepest and most transparent capital markets in the world,” he said. “Washington has been dealt a good hand.”

Eric Lipton reported from Washington, and Ben Protess from New York.

assault on America – THE OBAMA – JP MORGAN LOOTING of a nation


DID OBAMA PUNKED US OR IS HE SIMPLY A  FAILED PRESIDENCY?

OBAMA, THE MAN THAT NEVER VOTED DURING THE BRIEF PERIOD HE WAS IN THE SENATE, OWNED AND OPERATED BY BIG BANKSTERS, IS NOTHING BUT A CON JOB CALLED “CHANGE”… OR DICTATOR IN THE MAKING.


EITHER WAY HE IS THE MOST FAILED PRESIDENCY IN MODERN AMERICAN HISTORY.

Government of, by, and for the banks

25 May 2013

Five years since the 2008 financial meltdown, the speculation and fraud that caused the crash are back in full force in the United States. Flush with the $85 billion in cash printed up and handed to the banks every month by the Federal Reserve, business at the Wall Street casino is booming. Stock values are at record levels and so are bank profits, amidst declining wages and mass poverty.


Big Banks Get Break in Rules to Limit Risks

OBAMA-STYLE CRONY CAPITALISM… business as usual for Obama’s banksters!

OBAMA AND HIS CRIMINAL BANKSTERS… THE LOOTING GOES ON, AND AS PER OBAMA’S PROMISE…NONE HAVE GONE TO PRISON!


“The changes to the rule, which will be announced on Thursday, could effectively empower a few big banks to continue controlling the derivatives market, a main culprit in the financial crisis.”


OBAMANOMICS: BANK PROFITS and CRIMES SOAR UNDER OBAMA… so do foreclosures!

FORECLOSED ON AMERICA: HOW BARACK OBAMA and HIS CRIMINAL BANKSTERS LOOTED A NATION AND THEN PROFITEERED OFF THEIR CRIMES


Sen. Feinstein's Husband Cashes In on Crisis Ethical? Ethnics never enter into a deal Feinstein is pushing in Congress! FEINSTEIN IS A MAJOR OBAMA DONOR. SHE MAKES SIGNIFICATN "CONTRIBUTIONS" TO DEMS ALL OVER THE NATION SO THEY KEEP THEIR MOUTH SHUT ABOUT HER LOOTING OFF ELECTED OFFICE.


On the day the new Congress convened this year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to route $25 billion in taxpayer money to a government agency that had just awarded her husband's real estate firm a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties at compensation rates higher than the industry norms, the Washington Times reported on Tuesday.

Mrs. Feinstein's intervention on behalf of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was unusual: the California Democrat isn't a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs with jurisdiction over FDIC; and the agency is supposed to operate from money it raises from bank-paid insurance payments - not direct federal dollars.

 

unfortunately this is only one of the many “DEALS” Feinstein and her husband, Richard C. Blum have looted off of.

 

TWO OF FEINSTEIN’S BIGGEST DONORS ARE CRIMINAL BANKSTERS WELLS FARGO and BANK of AMERICA. SHE FRONTS FOR THESE BANKS IN THE SENATE LIKE SHE DOES RED CHINA! BOTH BANKS ARE AT THE TOP OF THE LIST FOR THE FORECLOSURE DEBACLE THEY ARE NOW PROFITEERING FROM.

 


 


*

Three reasons Congress is broken

By Robert G. Kaiser, Published: May 23

Robert G. Kaiser is an associate editor of The Washington Post and the author of “Act of Congress: How America’s Essential Institution Works, and How It Doesn’t,” published this month.

Why is Congress so helpless and so hopeless? We’ve heard all the fashionable explanations: partisan gridlock; special interests and the impact of their campaign contributions; gerrymandered House districts; an excessively partisan president; a benighted Republican Party dominated by tea party know-nothings.

But the real cause is deeper: Congress is a human institution with a distinct culture, and the modern version of that culture is hostile to creative problem-solving. If we have a mediocre Congress — even when it manages to accomplish something — it is because of the people in it and the culture they have created.

The men and women who now run for Congress have special features. Most of them are much wealthier than their constituents. Surprisingly few have strong policy interests or experience. Most are willing to spend a day or two or three each week asking strangers for money on the telephone, a demeaning but obligatory exercise. Most have internalized an ethical code that allows them to solicit campaign contributions from people directly affected by legislation they vote on. This is not rare or even unusual — it’s standard.

I’ve witnessed the transformation of congressional culture over the past decades from a variety of perches at The Washington Post, including two tours of duty as a reporter on Capitol Hill. I’ve long been intrigued, and often baffled, by our legislative branch. Then in 2009, I got lucky. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) agreed to let me watch them produce what became the Dodd-Frank bill, which reordered the regulation of America’s financial sector. They allowed their staffs to talk to me regularly, on the record, over 19 months. I was able to gather a reporter’s favorite commodity: the inside skinny. And I saw the culture of the modern Congress at work.

The events I witnessed were not exactly typical, because they produced a consequential result. This was due to special circumstances: the large Democratic majorities in the 111th Congress (2009-2011), elected in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and the effective leadership of two experienced legislators who held key chairmanships: Dodd at the Senate Banking Committee and Frank at the House Financial Services Committee.

Nevertheless, I saw how Congress actively undermines the best of legislative practices. Consider three aspects of that congressional culture that affected the course of Dodd-Frank — and are even more influential today, when Congress appears deadlocked on virtually all fronts.

Politics trumps policy

The crash of 2008 posed an obvious policy question: How could regulation of the financial sector be improved to prevent similar catastrophes? Most of the answers that eventually made their way into the Dodd-Frank bill were provided not by Congress but by the Obama administration.

Frank immediately accepted the bill the administration wrote as the appropriate framework for reform. It changed somewhat as it moved through the House, but not much. Dodd did offer some new ideas: for example, unifying the four existing bank regulators into a single new agency. But no other senator embraced Dodd’s plan, so he soon abandoned it and accepted the administration’s approach. Overall, the big policy questions were mostly settled by the administration.

Why? Because large, bipartisan majorities in both chambers never understood the arcane financial issues at the heart of regulatory reform, nor tried to master the subject. Theoretically, the lawmakers had an opportunity to wield enormous power and transform the biggest sector of the American economy. But very few were interested. “This notion that members of Congress are power-hungry — absolutely the opposite,” Frank observed at one point. “Most members like to duck tough issues.”

The politics of reform, by contrast, was a congressional preoccupation from the outset. Beginning in early 2009, Frank was talking about political implications with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who both thought a strong bill would help Democrats. Emanuel repeatedly told Frank that White House polls showed strong public support for reform. When pressure from hometown bankers and financial industry lobbyists weakened some Democrats’ resolve in the summer of 2009, Frank warned them to hang tough. “If you kill this bill now, you’ll get creamed,” he told the Democrats on his committee. “You’ll get primary opponents. It will be ‘the people against the banks,’ and ‘the Democrats caved in again.’ ”

Politics mattered for Dodd, too, but in a different way. He believed that a big bill of this kind was unlikely to be enacted without strong bipartisan support, which he pursued for months. He discouraged Democrats who wanted to make regulatory reform a partisan issue. But he also refused to vitiate the bill to satisfy Republicans who wanted a lot less regulation than he did. Ultimately, he got a smidgen of bipartisanship — just enough to get the bill through the Senate. Three Republican senators voted for cloture, to cut off debate and allow a final vote; four Republicans voted for the final bill.

Politics — and ideology — dominated GOP attitudes toward reform. In the House, Republicans ruled out any cooperation with Frank and the administration from the outset. House Republicans produced an alternative plan to demonstrate that they could agree on some response to the crash, but their proposal had no teeth and was never seen as anything more than a public relations exercise. Senate Republicans, meanwhile, never offered an alternative of their own.

Republican leaders in both houses used financial reform as a fundraising tool. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), the Senate Republican leader, and John Cornyn (Tex.), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, traveled to Wall Street to persuade — with considerable success — financiers to give more to Republicans. John Boehner (Ohio), the Republican leader of the House, similarly sought to attract Wall Street money by opposing the administration’s regulatory proposals. Republicans, including McConnell, repeatedly attacked the Dodd-Frank bill for provisions it did not contain and kept doing so when their errors were pointed out.

Staffers do most of the work

Ted Kennedy said as much in his 2009 memoir. “Ninety-five percent of the nitty-gritty work of drafting [bills] and even negotiating [their final form] is now done by staff,” he wrote, marking “an enormous shift of responsibility over the past forty or fifty years.”

In the case of Dodd-Frank, 95 percent might understate staff members’ share of the work. After Dodd and Frank themselves, the two most influential people in shaping the legislation were unknown to most Washington cognescenti: Amy Friend, chief counsel of the Senate Banking Committee, and Jeanne Roslanowick, staff director of House Financial Services Committee. They and their staffs were responsible for every aspect of producing the final legislation: writing provisions (most based on Obama administration drafts), vetting the contents with interest groups of all kinds, looking for glitches or omissions, and hearing out the recommendations and complaints of hundreds of experts, lobbyists and affected parties.

Very few lawmakers left fingerprints on the legislation. Most of them voted for or against Dodd-Frank — nearly all along party lines — without remotely understanding its provisions.

Staffers can’t vote, but lawmakers can’t legislate without the work done by staff. In some circumstances this feature of the modern Congress can help rather than hinder the House and Senate, because staff members tend to believe in compromise when elected officials often do not. But a compromise reached by staff won’t work on its own; lawmakers have to vote for it.

Issues, even the big ones,
are no longer really debated

In the “world’s greatest deliberative body,” there is little deliberation. The Senate Banking Committee never held a proper markup of the Dodd-Frank legislation, and did not debate its provisions or consider their impact. The House markup was ritualistic and formalized; it did little to alter the bill, with one interesting exception — an amendment exempting auto dealers from the purview of the new consumer financial protection agency.

The final law has a number of radical provisions that were not debated in either body. One example: It created a Financial Stability Oversight Council consisting of the heads of many regulatory agencies and chaired by the Treasury secretary. It can instruct regulators to force firms to abandon practices it considers too risky and can even shut down a firm it deems a threat to the stability of the financial system. If, one fine day, the council uses that unprecedented power, the consequences could be dramatic. But this was never really debated during the legislative process that produced the bill.

Floor debates in both houses consisted primarily of political posturing. Lawmakers did not engage in a serious philosophical discussion about the proper role of regulation in the financial sector or in a practical discussion of how regulation might make the system safer. Instead, the two parties swapped slogans and catchwords. During the floor debates on final passage in the House, the galleries were never full and often empty.

Frank and Dodd were both remarkable leaders, nurturing support, solving tactical problems and, in Dodd’s case, finding just enough Republican allies to bring home a bill. They were old-school legislators who loved the process and knew how to make it work.

Both have now retired from Congress. Those filling their roles have neither their brainpower nor their political skill. Too few senior lawmakers in Congress have comparable talents. Bright, serious people who understand policy still do run for and serve in the House and the Senate, but they are a small minority. Service in Congress is losing its allure.

It is difficult to imagine that the House and Senate giants of the recent past would run for those jobs today. Would Everett McKinley Dirksen enjoy begging for money? Would Howard Baker have put up with it? Or Philip Hart or Paul Douglas? Peter Rodino or Lee Hamilton? Would any of them enjoy the life of a modern member of Congress, working three- or four-day weeks in Washington and flying home every weekend, flitting from subject to subject and mastering none? I doubt it.

The culture of Congress is the problem. It took more than three decades for this culture to evolve, and it is now deeply entrenched. That is why the current Congress is unable to function. It is revealing that the only issue now offering any hope for compromise is immigration — because many Republicans fear the political consequences of failing to act. Once again, politics trumps policy.

This dysfunctional culture won’t be altered in an election cycle or two. Because of it, our Congress is broken.

kaiserr@washpost.com

Read more from Outlook:

 

 

OBAMA - The Bankster-owned president assures BIG BANKS their looting, crimes and profits may only soar as always!


 

THE BANKS ALL BUT DESTROYED THE AMERICAN ECONOMY, AND DID DESTROY THE LIFE SAVINGS OF MILLIONS OF AMERICANS WHOSE WEALTH WAS TIED UP IN THEIR HOME… THANKS TO THE BANKSTER-OWNED PRESIDENT, THEIR PROFITS AND CRIMES ARE SOARING.

 

CONGRESS – HOUSE OF WHORES FOR BANKSTERS!

dems… party for illegals and criminal banksters! but then, isn’t what the GOP is also?
But most of the Democrats on the committee, along with 31 Republicans, came to the industry’s defense, including the seven freshmen Democrats — most of whom have started to receive donations this year from political action committees of Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and other financial institutions, records show.

 

DealBook - A Financial News Service of The New York Times

May 23, 2013, 9:44 pm

Banks’ Lobbyists Help in Drafting Financial Bills


WASHINGTON — Bank lobbyists are not leaving it to lawmakers to draft legislation that softens financial regulations. Instead, the lobbyists are helping to write it themselves.

One bill that sailed through the House Financial Services Committee this month — over the objections of the Treasury Department — was essentially Citigroup’s, according to e-mails reviewed by The New York Times. The bill would exempt broad swathes of trades from new regulation.

In a sign of Wall Street’s resurgent influence in Washington, Citigroup’s recommendations were reflected in more than 70 lines of the House committee’s 85-line bill. Two crucial paragraphs, prepared by Citigroup in conjunction with other Wall Street banks, were copied nearly word for word. (Lawmakers changed two words to make them plural.)

The lobbying campaign shows how, three years after Congress passed the most comprehensive overhaul of regulation since the Depression, Wall Street is finding Washington a friendlier place.

The cordial relations now include a growing number of Democrats in both the House and the Senate, whose support the banks need if they want to roll back parts of the 2010 financial overhaul, known as Dodd-Frank.

This legislative push is a second front, with Wall Street’s other battle being waged against regulators who are drafting detailed rules allowing them to enforce the law.

And as its lobbying campaign steps up, the financial industry has doubled its already considerable giving to political causes. The lawmakers who this month supported the bills championed by Wall Street received twice as much in contributions from financial institutions compared with those who opposed them, according to an analysis of campaign finance records performed by MapLight, a nonprofit group.

In recent weeks, Wall Street groups also held fund-raisers for lawmakers who co-sponsored the bills. At one dinner Wednesday night, corporate executives and lobbyists paid up to $2,500 to dine in a private room of a Greek restaurant just blocks from the Capitol with Representative Sean Patrick Maloney, Democrat of New York, a co-sponsor of the bill championed by Citigroup.

Industry officials acknowledged that they played a role in drafting the legislation, but argued that the practice was common in Washington. Some of the changes, they say, have gained wide support, including from Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman. The changes, they added, were in an effort to reach a compromise over the bills, not to undermine Dodd-Frank.

“We will provide input if we see a bill and it is something we have interest in,” said Kenneth E. Bentsen Jr., a former lawmaker turned Wall Street lobbyist, who now serves as president of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, or Sifma.

The close ties hardly surprise Wall Street critics, who have long warned that the banks — whose small armies of lobbyists include dozens of former Capitol Hill aides — possess outsize influence in Washington.

“The huge machinery of Wall Street information and analysis skews the thinking of Congress,” said Jeff Connaughton, who has been both a lobbyist and Congressional staff member.

Lawmakers who supported the industry-backed bills said they did so because the effort was in the public interest. Yet some agreed that the relationship with corporate groups was at times uncomfortable.

“I won’t dispute for one second the problems of a system that demands immense amount of fund-raisers by its legislators,” said Representative Jim Himes, a third-term Democrat of Connecticut, who supported the recent industry-backed bills and leads the party’s fund-raising effort in the House. A member of the Financial Services Committee and a former banker at Goldman Sachs, he is one of the top recipients of Wall Street donations. “It’s appalling, it’s disgusting, it’s wasteful and it opens the possibility of conflicts of interest and corruption. It’s unfortunately the world we live in.”

The passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, which took aim at culprits of the financial crisis like lax mortgage lending and the $700 trillion derivatives market, ushered in a new phase of Wall Street lobbying. Over the last three years, bank lobbyists have blitzed the regulatory agencies writing rules under Dodd-Frank, chipping away at some regulations.

But the industry lobbyists also realized that Congress can play a critical role in the campaign to mute Dodd-Frank.

The House Financial Services Committee has been a natural target. Not only is it controlled by Republicans, who had opposed Dodd-Frank, but freshmen lawmakers are often appointed to the unusually large committee because it is seen as a helpful base from which they can raise campaign funds.

For Wall Street, the committee is a place to push back against Dodd-Frank. When banks and other corporations, for example, feared that regulators would demand new scrutiny of derivatives trades, they appealed to the committee. At the time, regulators were completing Dodd-Frank’s overhaul of derivatives, contracts that allow companies to either speculate in the markets or protect against risk. Derivatives had pushed the insurance giant American International Group to the brink of collapse in 2008. The question was whether regulators would exempt certain in-house derivatives trades between affiliates of big banks.

As the House committee was drafting a bill that would force regulators to exempt many such trades, corporate lawyers like Michael Bopp weighed in with their suggested changes, according to e-mails reviewed by The Times. At one point, when a House aide sent a potential compromise to Mr. Bopp, he replied with additional tweaks.

In an interview, Mr. Bopp explained that he drafted the proposal at the request of Congressional aides, who expressed broad support for the change. The proposal, he explained, was a “compromise” that was actually designed to “limit the scope” of the exemption.

“Everyone on the Hill wanted this bill, but they wanted to make sure it wasn’t subject to abuse,” said Mr. Bopp, a partner at the law firm Gibson, Dunn who was representing a coalition of nonfinancial corporations that use derivatives to hedge their risk.

Ultimately, the committee inserted every word of Mr. Bopp’s suggestion into a 2012 version of the bill that passed the House, save for a slight change in phrasing. A later iteration of the bill, passed by the House committee earlier this month, also included some of the same wording.

And when federal regulators in April released a rule governing such trades, it was significantly less demanding than the industry had feared, a decision that the industry partly attributed to pressure stemming from Capitol Hill.

Citigroup and other major banks used a similar approach on another derivatives bill. Under Dodd-Frank, banks must push some derivatives trading into separate units that are not backed by the government’s insurance fund. The goal was to isolate this risky trading.

The provision exempted many derivatives from the requirement, but some Republicans proposed striking the so-called push out provision altogether. After objections were raised about the Republican plan, Citigroup lobbyists sent around the bank’s own compromise proposal that simply exempted a wider array of derivatives. That recommendation, put forth in late 2011, was largely part of the bill approved by the House committee on May 7 and is now pending before both the Senate and the House.

Citigroup executives said the change they advocated was good for the financial system, not just the bank.

“This view is shared not just by the industry but from leaders such as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke,” said Molly Millerwise Meiners, a Citigroup spokeswoman.

Industry executives said that the changes — which were drafted in consultation with other major industry banks — will make the financial system more secure, as the derivatives trading that takes place inside the bank is subject to much greater scrutiny.

Representative Maxine Waters, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee, was among the few Democrats opposing the change, echoing the concerns of consumer groups.

“The bill restores the public subsidy to exotic Wall Street activities,” said Marcus Stanley, the policy director of Americans for Financial Reform, a nonprofit group.

But most of the Democrats on the committee, along with 31 Republicans, came to the industry’s defense, including the seven freshmen Democrats — most of whom have started to receive donations this year from political action committees of Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo and other financial institutions, records show.

Six days after the vote, several freshmen Democrats were in New York to meet with bank executives, a tour organized by Representative Joe Crowley, who helps lead the House Democrats’ fund-raising committee. The trip was planned before the votes, and was not a fund-raiser, but it gave the lawmakers a chance to meet with Wall Street’s elite.

In addition to a tour of Goldman’s Lower Manhattan headquarters, and a meeting with Lloyd C. Blankfein, the bank’s chief executive, the lawmakers went to JPMorgan’s Park Avenue office. There, they chatted with Jamie Dimon, the bank’s chief, about Dodd-Frank and immigration reform.

The bank chief also delivered something of a pep talk.

“America has the widest, deepest and most transparent capital markets in the world,” he said. “Washington has been dealt a good hand.”

Eric Lipton reported from Washington, and Ben Protess from New York.

Assault on America – THE OBAMA – JP MORGAN LOOTING of a nation


DID OBAMA PUNKED US OR IS HE SIMPLY A  FAILED PRESIDENCY?

OBAMA, THE MAN THAT NEVER VOTED DURING THE BRIEF PERIOD HE WAS IN THE SENATE, OWNED AND OPERATED BY BIG BANKSTERS, IS NOTHING BUT A CON JOB CALLED “CHANGE”… OR DICTATOR IN THE MAKING.


EITHER WAY HE IS THE MOST FAILED PRESIDENCY IN MODERN AMERICAN HISTORY.

Government of, by, and for the banks

25 May 2013

Five years since the 2008 financial meltdown, the speculation and fraud that caused the crash are back in full force in the United States. Flush with the $85 billion in cash printed up and handed to the banks every month by the Federal Reserve, business at the Wall Street casino is booming. Stock values are at record levels and so are bank profits, amidst declining wages and mass poverty.


Big Banks Get Break in Rules to Limit Risks

OBAMA-STYLE CRONY CAPITALISM… business as usual for Obama’s banksters!

OBAMA AND HIS CRIMINAL BANKSTERS… THE LOOTING GOES ON, AND AS PER OBAMA’S PROMISE…NONE HAVE GONE TO PRISON!


“The changes to the rule, which will be announced on Thursday, could effectively empower a few big banks to continue controlling the derivatives market, a main culprit in the financial crisis.”


OBAMANOMICS: BANK PROFITS and CRIMES SOAR UNDER OBAMA… so do foreclosures!

FORECLOSED ON AMERICA: HOW BARACK OBAMA and HIS CRIMINAL BANKSTERS LOOTED A NATION AND THEN PROFITEERED OFF THEIR CRIMES


Sen. Feinstein's Husband Cashes In on Crisis Ethical? Ethnics never enter into a deal Feinstein is pushing in Congress! FEINSTEIN IS A MAJOR OBAMA DONOR. SHE MAKES SIGNIFICATN "CONTRIBUTIONS" TO DEMS ALL OVER THE NATION SO THEY KEEP THEIR MOUTH SHUT ABOUT HER LOOTING OFF ELECTED OFFICE.


On the day the new Congress convened this year, Sen. Dianne Feinstein introduced legislation to route $25 billion in taxpayer money to a government agency that had just awarded her husband's real estate firm a lucrative contract to sell foreclosed properties at compensation rates higher than the industry norms, the Washington Times reported on Tuesday.

Mrs. Feinstein's intervention on behalf of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was unusual: the California Democrat isn't a member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs with jurisdiction over FDIC; and the agency is supposed to operate from money it raises from bank-paid insurance payments - not direct federal dollars.

 

unfortunately this is only one of the many “DEALS” Feinstein and her husband, Richard C. Blum have looted off of.

 

TWO OF FEINSTEIN’S BIGGEST DONORS ARE CRIMINAL BANKSTERS WELLS FARGO and BANK of AMERICA. SHE FRONTS FOR THESE BANKS IN THE SENATE LIKE SHE DOES RED CHINA! BOTH BANKS ARE AT THE TOP OF THE LIST FOR THE FORECLOSURE DEBACLE THEY ARE NOW PROFITEERING FROM.

 


 


*

Three reasons Congress is broken

By Robert G. Kaiser, Published: May 23

Robert G. Kaiser is an associate editor of The Washington Post and the author of “Act of Congress: How America’s Essential Institution Works, and How It Doesn’t,” published this month.

Why is Congress so helpless and so hopeless? We’ve heard all the fashionable explanations: partisan gridlock; special interests and the impact of their campaign contributions; gerrymandered House districts; an excessively partisan president; a benighted Republican Party dominated by tea party know-nothings.

But the real cause is deeper: Congress is a human institution with a distinct culture, and the modern version of that culture is hostile to creative problem-solving. If we have a mediocre Congress — even when it manages to accomplish something — it is because of the people in it and the culture they have created.

The men and women who now run for Congress have special features. Most of them are much wealthier than their constituents. Surprisingly few have strong policy interests or experience. Most are willing to spend a day or two or three each week asking strangers for money on the telephone, a demeaning but obligatory exercise. Most have internalized an ethical code that allows them to solicit campaign contributions from people directly affected by legislation they vote on. This is not rare or even unusual — it’s standard.

I’ve witnessed the transformation of congressional culture over the past decades from a variety of perches at The Washington Post, including two tours of duty as a reporter on Capitol Hill. I’ve long been intrigued, and often baffled, by our legislative branch. Then in 2009, I got lucky. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) agreed to let me watch them produce what became the Dodd-Frank bill, which reordered the regulation of America’s financial sector. They allowed their staffs to talk to me regularly, on the record, over 19 months. I was able to gather a reporter’s favorite commodity: the inside skinny. And I saw the culture of the modern Congress at work.

The events I witnessed were not exactly typical, because they produced a consequential result. This was due to special circumstances: the large Democratic majorities in the 111th Congress (2009-2011), elected in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, and the effective leadership of two experienced legislators who held key chairmanships: Dodd at the Senate Banking Committee and Frank at the House Financial Services Committee.

Nevertheless, I saw how Congress actively undermines the best of legislative practices. Consider three aspects of that congressional culture that affected the course of Dodd-Frank — and are even more influential today, when Congress appears deadlocked on virtually all fronts.

Politics trumps policy

The crash of 2008 posed an obvious policy question: How could regulation of the financial sector be improved to prevent similar catastrophes? Most of the answers that eventually made their way into the Dodd-Frank bill were provided not by Congress but by the Obama administration.

Frank immediately accepted the bill the administration wrote as the appropriate framework for reform. It changed somewhat as it moved through the House, but not much. Dodd did offer some new ideas: for example, unifying the four existing bank regulators into a single new agency. But no other senator embraced Dodd’s plan, so he soon abandoned it and accepted the administration’s approach. Overall, the big policy questions were mostly settled by the administration.

Why? Because large, bipartisan majorities in both chambers never understood the arcane financial issues at the heart of regulatory reform, nor tried to master the subject. Theoretically, the lawmakers had an opportunity to wield enormous power and transform the biggest sector of the American economy. But very few were interested. “This notion that members of Congress are power-hungry — absolutely the opposite,” Frank observed at one point. “Most members like to duck tough issues.”

The politics of reform, by contrast, was a congressional preoccupation from the outset. Beginning in early 2009, Frank was talking about political implications with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, who both thought a strong bill would help Democrats. Emanuel repeatedly told Frank that White House polls showed strong public support for reform. When pressure from hometown bankers and financial industry lobbyists weakened some Democrats’ resolve in the summer of 2009, Frank warned them to hang tough. “If you kill this bill now, you’ll get creamed,” he told the Democrats on his committee. “You’ll get primary opponents. It will be ‘the people against the banks,’ and ‘the Democrats caved in again.’ ”

Politics mattered for Dodd, too, but in a different way. He believed that a big bill of this kind was unlikely to be enacted without strong bipartisan support, which he pursued for months. He discouraged Democrats who wanted to make regulatory reform a partisan issue. But he also refused to vitiate the bill to satisfy Republicans who wanted a lot less regulation than he did. Ultimately, he got a smidgen of bipartisanship — just enough to get the bill through the Senate. Three Republican senators voted for cloture, to cut off debate and allow a final vote; four Republicans voted for the final bill.

Politics — and ideology — dominated GOP attitudes toward reform. In the House, Republicans ruled out any cooperation with Frank and the administration from the outset. House Republicans produced an alternative plan to demonstrate that they could agree on some response to the crash, but their proposal had no teeth and was never seen as anything more than a public relations exercise. Senate Republicans, meanwhile, never offered an alternative of their own.

Republican leaders in both houses used financial reform as a fundraising tool. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), the Senate Republican leader, and John Cornyn (Tex.), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, traveled to Wall Street to persuade — with considerable success — financiers to give more to Republicans. John Boehner (Ohio), the Republican leader of the House, similarly sought to attract Wall Street money by opposing the administration’s regulatory proposals. Republicans, including McConnell, repeatedly attacked the Dodd-Frank bill for provisions it did not contain and kept doing so when their errors were pointed out.

Staffers do most of the work

Ted Kennedy said as much in his 2009 memoir. “Ninety-five percent of the nitty-gritty work of drafting [bills] and even negotiating [their final form] is now done by staff,” he wrote, marking “an enormous shift of responsibility over the past forty or fifty years.”

In the case of Dodd-Frank, 95 percent might understate staff members’ share of the work. After Dodd and Frank themselves, the two most influential people in shaping the legislation were unknown to most Washington cognescenti: Amy Friend, chief counsel of the Senate Banking Committee, and Jeanne Roslanowick, staff director of House Financial Services Committee. They and their staffs were responsible for every aspect of producing the final legislation: writing provisions (most based on Obama administration drafts), vetting the contents with interest groups of all kinds, looking for glitches or omissions, and hearing out the recommendations and complaints of hundreds of experts, lobbyists and affected parties.

Very few lawmakers left fingerprints on the legislation. Most of them voted for or against Dodd-Frank — nearly all along party lines — without remotely understanding its provisions.

Staffers can’t vote, but lawmakers can’t legislate without the work done by staff. In some circumstances this feature of the modern Congress can help rather than hinder the House and Senate, because staff members tend to believe in compromise when elected officials often do not. But a compromise reached by staff won’t work on its own; lawmakers have to vote for it.

Issues, even the big ones,
are no longer really debated

In the “world’s greatest deliberative body,” there is little deliberation. The Senate Banking Committee never held a proper markup of the Dodd-Frank legislation, and did not debate its provisions or consider their impact. The House markup was ritualistic and formalized; it did little to alter the bill, with one interesting exception — an amendment exempting auto dealers from the purview of the new consumer financial protection agency.

The final law has a number of radical provisions that were not debated in either body. One example: It created a Financial Stability Oversight Council consisting of the heads of many regulatory agencies and chaired by the Treasury secretary. It can instruct regulators to force firms to abandon practices it considers too risky and can even shut down a firm it deems a threat to the stability of the financial system. If, one fine day, the council uses that unprecedented power, the consequences could be dramatic. But this was never really debated during the legislative process that produced the bill.

Floor debates in both houses consisted primarily of political posturing. Lawmakers did not engage in a serious philosophical discussion about the proper role of regulation in the financial sector or in a practical discussion of how regulation might make the system safer. Instead, the two parties swapped slogans and catchwords. During the floor debates on final passage in the House, the galleries were never full and often empty.

Frank and Dodd were both remarkable leaders, nurturing support, solving tactical problems and, in Dodd’s case, finding just enough Republican allies to bring home a bill. They were old-school legislators who loved the process and knew how to make it work.

Both have now retired from Congress. Those filling their roles have neither their brainpower nor their political skill. Too few senior lawmakers in Congress have comparable talents. Bright, serious people who understand policy still do run for and serve in the House and the Senate, but they are a small minority. Service in Congress is losing its allure.

It is difficult to imagine that the House and Senate giants of the recent past would run for those jobs today. Would Everett McKinley Dirksen enjoy begging for money? Would Howard Baker have put up with it? Or Philip Hart or Paul Douglas? Peter Rodino or Lee Hamilton? Would any of them enjoy the life of a modern member of Congress, working three- or four-day weeks in Washington and flying home every weekend, flitting from subject to subject and mastering none? I doubt it.

The culture of Congress is the problem. It took more than three decades for this culture to evolve, and it is now deeply entrenched. That is why the current Congress is unable to function. It is revealing that the only issue now offering any hope for compromise is immigration — because many Republicans fear the political consequences of failing to act. Once again, politics trumps policy.

This dysfunctional culture won’t be altered in an election cycle or two. Because of it, our Congress is broken.

kaiserr@washpost.com

Read more from Outlook: