Disir
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- Sep 30, 2011
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Meanwhile, less than two decades after 40 congressional Democrats voted for George W. Bush’s regressive tax cuts, not a single one backed Donald Trump’s – even though ten Democratic senators were staring down tough reelection bids in states that the GOP president had won.
By all appearances, the Democratic Establishment has finally concluded that a “stopped-clock socialist” is right a couple times a century – and that their party’s path out of the wilderness cuts away from Wall Street and toward the left.
Or, so it appeared until last week – when more than a dozen members of the Senate Democrats voted to advance a bill that would make it easier for banks to discriminate against black people, coerce mobile-home buyers into predatory loans, and pursue high-risk lending strategies that increase the likelihood of a future financial crisis.
You can pursue more thorough accounts of the legislation’s toxic flaws here and here. But the upshot is simple: In the name of providing regulatory relief to “community banks,” the bill empowers small lenders to abuse consumers; liberates medium-size banks (including ones large enough to have required bailouts ten years ago) from the heightened regulatory scrutiny that Congress had put on them after the 2008 crisis; and provides the nation’s largest banks with various loopholes that will make it easier for them to take bigger risks and evade regulatory oversight.
For these reasons, among others, the Congressional Budget Office has concluded that the bill would significantly increase the odds of taxpayers having to bail out a failed bank in the near-future.
Thus, the fact that so many Democratic senators are eager to help Mitch McConnell pass it – and that Chuck Schumer has made no discernible effort to dissuade them from doing so – raises the question: Have progressives really changed the ideological orientation of the Democratic Party, or does Wall Street still hold the deed to blue America’s “big tent”?
The Democratic Party Is Moving Left – Except When You’re Not Looking
Don't listen to what they say, watch what they do. A platform is nonbinding.
By all appearances, the Democratic Establishment has finally concluded that a “stopped-clock socialist” is right a couple times a century – and that their party’s path out of the wilderness cuts away from Wall Street and toward the left.
Or, so it appeared until last week – when more than a dozen members of the Senate Democrats voted to advance a bill that would make it easier for banks to discriminate against black people, coerce mobile-home buyers into predatory loans, and pursue high-risk lending strategies that increase the likelihood of a future financial crisis.
You can pursue more thorough accounts of the legislation’s toxic flaws here and here. But the upshot is simple: In the name of providing regulatory relief to “community banks,” the bill empowers small lenders to abuse consumers; liberates medium-size banks (including ones large enough to have required bailouts ten years ago) from the heightened regulatory scrutiny that Congress had put on them after the 2008 crisis; and provides the nation’s largest banks with various loopholes that will make it easier for them to take bigger risks and evade regulatory oversight.
For these reasons, among others, the Congressional Budget Office has concluded that the bill would significantly increase the odds of taxpayers having to bail out a failed bank in the near-future.
Thus, the fact that so many Democratic senators are eager to help Mitch McConnell pass it – and that Chuck Schumer has made no discernible effort to dissuade them from doing so – raises the question: Have progressives really changed the ideological orientation of the Democratic Party, or does Wall Street still hold the deed to blue America’s “big tent”?
The Democratic Party Is Moving Left – Except When You’re Not Looking
Don't listen to what they say, watch what they do. A platform is nonbinding.