› Obama & Cronies Picking Winners & Losers

President Obama, as we all know, was touring Iowa in District 2 and here in Des Moines for a couple of days this week.  One thing that caught the news is Obama’s critical comments of Senate Republicans.

ABC News reported him saying “For the second time in 24 hours, Senate Republicans unanimously blocked efforts to debate the bill…I’m not even asking them to vote for the bill. I just want to let them debate it. “

Mr. Obama told the crowd that Republicans “won’t even let it get on the floor to be debated. It’s one thing to oppose reform, but to oppose just talking about reform in front of the American people — to have legitimate debate — that’s not right.”

Certainly we’ve become the party of “no” in the past months considering Obama and his cronies in Congress want to regulate every aspect of our lives, but these accusations are mere rhetoric meant to build democratic sympathy in a state where Chet Culver has virtually no chance of winning.  Anyways, the point is this: why are Senate Republicans refusing to debate?

Many of you have heard my stump and frequently hear me say that when I read a bill, if it’s unconstitutional or bad for America after the first few pages, I’m going to just say no.  Why debate something that’s bad?  It doesn’t make any sense.  Bring something worthwhile to the table and then let’s have some real debate.

Mark Calabria of the CATO Institute was kind enough to point out why this bill is filled with special interests.  While Democrats accuse the right of lending their ears to Wall Street, Democrats have in fact, done nothing but help big businesses at the expense of small ones.  Here are some of those exemptions Mark found in a bill where Senator Dodd says it increases regulation of all “too big to fail” companies:

• This bill only provides additional regulation for companies with bank-charters.  So those companies like AIG who required a massive multi-billion dollar bailout who operate under a “thrift-charter” will not be held accountable.  (Just so happens most of these firms operate in Connecticut where Dodd is Senator.)
• The bill rolls back some consumer protections such as RESPA.  If this bill passes, you’re real estate agent and attorney can get financial kickbacks by pushing you towards specific title companies, inspectors and other closing-services when purchasing a home.  Well, Congress has functioned fine getting kickbacks (aka. Senator Dodd), why shouldn’t other people as well?
• The Farm Credit system that competes directly with banks will not see increased regulation while, of course, banks do.  So this is how the government competes with the private sector.  They eliminate any good chance of the private sector to be profitable.  Now we learn the true purpose of government under Obama: To protect the government from the people.
• This also includes no increase in regulation of….FREDDIE and FANNIE MAE!  Who just happened to be at the epi-center of the economic meltdown.
• Calabria also reported that “Worse yet is that Wall Street is exempted from the reach of the proposed consumer-protection agency — its regulation will remain with the Securities and Exchange Commission,” who were “busy” during the last meltdown.
• They have selected a handful of manufacturers who have financial divisions within their companies who will be exempt from only being able to trade derivatives through an exchange and clearinghouse.  Naturally, this includes the auto-makers.

I think it’s more than obvious why Republicans and some Democrats are not allowing debate.  This bill is BAD FOR AMERICA and there is no point in debating on a bill so slanted for special interests.  Government should NEVER be in the business of picking winners and losers.  This bill does just that.