In other words, it isn\u2019t Congress\u2019s fault. It isn\u2019t the Senate Banking Committee\u2019s fault. It certainly isn\u2019t Dodd\u2019s fault. The reason more than a year has passed since the biggest bailout in the history of the world and nothing has been done to prevent a repeat performance \u2014 even as the biggest banks are doling out more than $30 billion of bonuses, even as Goldman Sachs is awarding its big traders $16 billion in bonuses (more than the $13 billion Goldman collected from taxpayers via the bailout of AIG), even as AIG itself is handing out bonuses \u2014 the reason is \u2026 what, exactly, Senator? Because the Street has sent an army of lobbyists to Capitol Hill?<\/font><\/p>\n Call me old fashioned, but I thought Congress was in charge of passing legislation, not Wall Street.<\/font><\/p>\n Dodd left out the most telling detail, of course. Wall Street is where the campaign money is<\/strong>. Dodd of all people knows that. He\u2019s been on the receiving end of lots of it over the years.<\/font><\/p>\n Wall Street firms and their executives have been uniquely generous to both political parties, emerging recently as one of the largest benefactors of the Democratic Party. Between November 2008 and November 2009, Wall Street firms and executives handed out $42 million to lawmakers, mostly to members of the House and Senate banking committees and House and Senate leaders<\/strong>. During the 2008 elections, Wall Street showered Democratic candidates with well over $88 million and Republicans with over $67 million, putting the Street right up there with the insurance industry as among the nation\u2019s largest equal-opportunity donors.<\/font><\/p>\n Some Democrats are quietly grumbling that all the tough talk emanating from the White House in recent weeks \u2014 the President calling the Street\u2019s denizens \u201cfat cats\u201d and threatening them with limits on their size and the risks they can take, even waiving a watered-down version of Glass-Steagall in their faces \u2014 is making it harder to collect money from the Street this mid-term election year<\/strong>. And the Street is quietly threatening that it may well give Republicans more, if the saber-rattling doesn\u2019t stop.<\/font><\/p>\n Congress isn\u2019t doing a thing about Wall Street because it\u2019s in the pocket of Wall Street. Dodd\u2019s outburst at the Street is like the alcoholic who screams at a bartender \u201chow dare you give me another drink when all I\u2019ve done is pleaded with you for one!\u201d\u2026<\/font><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Inserted from <Alternet<\/a>><\/p>\n He\u2019s right. We have the best Congress money can buy\u2026 and has. The only way to return government to the people is 100% public financing, at least at the federal level. Until and unless we accomplish that goal, Congress will represent those who bought them, not those whop voted them in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Robert Reich\u2019s column on this is quite good. Senator Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, scolded Wall Street representatives at a hearing Thursday for sending \u201can army of lobbyists whose only mission is to kill the common-sense financial reforms\u201d needed by the public. \u201cThe fact is,\u201d Dodd said, \u201cI am frustrated, and […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"corruption\"](\"http:\/\/s217.photobucket.com\/albums\/cc83\/TomCat1948or2\/Blog%202010\/J-M\/WhyCongressDoesntStandUptoWallStreet_14F1\/corruption.jpg\" "\\"corruption\\"")
<\/a> Senator Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, scolded Wall Street representatives at a hearing Thursday for sending \u201can army of lobbyists whose only mission is to kill the common-sense financial reforms\u201d needed by the public. \u201cThe fact is,\u201d Dodd said, \u201cI am frustrated, and so are the American people.\u201d He charged that Wall Street\u2019s intransigence was the reason for Congress\u2019s failure to pass any bill to regulate the Street. \u201cThe refusal of large financial firms to work constructively with Congress on this effort borders on insulting to the American people who have lost so much in this crisis.\u201d<\/font><\/p>\n