WASHINGTON, April 30 (UPI) — A vote on sweeping reforms to the U.S. financial system will take place next week, Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., the bill’s sponsor, said Friday.
Speaking on the Senate floor, Dodd, the Banking Committee chairman, said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said it was his intention “to come in every day and stay late every day” to vote on amendments the bill.
Dodd said no vote on the bill would be taken until at least Tuesday so senators can debate and vote on amendments beginning Monday.
“Obviously we want to get this bill done if we can,” Dodd said after several hours of debate and introduction of amendments Friday. “It’s an emotional issue, given what country has gone through in the last two years.”
One of the more controversial proposals — a consumer financial product protection agency — has the “bark and the bite” to protect consumers in financial dealings, Dodd said.
“It will (help) shut down scammers and sleazy leaders who are out there in droves before they can take advantage (of unsuspecting people),” the retiring senator said.
Opponents of the proposed panel have said it would extend beyond financial institutions, accusations Dodd said were made from “whole cloth.”
“The consumer bureau isn’t going to regulate an accountant or a dentist,” Dodd said. “Any time you hear that … a false talking point is surfacing.”
Drawing on his time teaching economics, Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said the U.S. economy runs on confidence.
“If the American people are confident about the future, they do things to manifest that confidence in the future that’s expansive to the economy,” Dorgan said while speaking in favor of the bill. “If they aren’t, they do the opposite and contract the economy.”
Saying the bill wasn’t perfect, Dorgan said, “In the end I hope we can all work together for our country and for more economic growth and opportunities.”
The floor debate kicked off with a proposal to guarantee liquidation of firms placed in receivership. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said she proposed an amendment to undercut the Republicans’ stance that the 1,400-page financial reform bill would perpetuate taxpayer-subsidized bailouts, The New York Times reported Friday.
Boxer said she approached Dodd with language that would mandate “all financial companies put into receivership under this title shall be liquidated. No company is going to be kept afloat.”
Further, the amendment proposes that “all funds” spent liquidating a company shall be recovered either from the sale of the company’s assets or “through assessments … of the financial sector.”
There was no vote taken on the amendment.
Minority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said Thursday he would work to “reshape the bill … so that it actually ends bailouts, protects consumers without jeopardizing our small community banks and brings transparency … to the world of derivatives, without sacrificing economic growth and job creation.”
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