New bill could protect consumers and America

Some in Congress forget that President George W. Bush bailed out Wall Street before there was a Barack Obama to bail out the American taxpayer. It was Bush, joined by a Republican Congress, who in 2008 jointly threw a taxpayer's lifeline to Big Bankers, Wall Street moguls, and auto giants GM and Chrysler.

Some Washington politicians are blaming the administration for going on a "massive spending spree, the likes of which we've never seen." They choose to forget that a fiscally irresponsible Republican Congress freed the boys on Wall Street from laws. They then played havoc with the American economy.

The very same Republicans who now abhor spending are the same ones who spent our nation into a narrowly averted economic collapse. They spent well over $3 trillion on two wars they refused to finance. Next, they spent billions on a Medicare drug plan that they neglected to finance. As a result, the Republican Congress created one of the nation's largest deficits in 2004, and then topped itself with an even larger one. Only two presidents had larger deficits than the one created by the last Republican Congress: Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush. But guess who is counting dollars now that Obama is in office? It is the same Republican lawmakers, still in Washington, who are sending the nation deeper into debt. They deepen our deficit by blocking administration efforts to tax Wall Street and Big Oil. Being a wealthy Republican means never having to say you're sorry or pay your fair share of taxes.

Memo completed. Please return to work, Republican legislators, and accept responsibility for the mess you helped to create. You can do it sooner rather than later. President Obama, please accept their mea culpa and proceed to get America back to work.

House Democrats, almost alone, passed the Wall Street Reform in time for the Fourth of July and gave the American taxpayer a fabulous birthday gift: accountability for Wall Street. The Democrats remember the American taxpayer bailed out Wall Street. Americans of fewer means, with their own hardworking hands, and taxes taken from minimum wage and no-frills paychecks, rescued those of great means.

After the Republican Congress repealed years of regulations, hard won by a Democratic Congress in the Great Depression, the Democrats needed to step in once again. A Democratic Congress is ready to give the taxpayers a future.

The bill is now pending in the U.S. Senate, where a super majority is required for anything to happen. It is a good bill. It ends the principle of "too big to fail," a concept everyone should be happy to see go. Recall that a Republican Congress asked us to hold our noses and give our paycheck taxes to Wall Street executives because they saw no other way out. Thanks be, that won't happen again.

When this bill becomes law, it will create a way to shut down financial institutions that play fast and loose with the people's money. It will dissolve a failing company, not with taxpayers' monies, but with a fund paid into by all major financial firms. It's communal insurance, in a sense. The major financial firms pay into it. In return, they get the security of knowing that someone else's tumble isn't going to take them down as well. Result: the companies bail themselves out.

Congress publicly debated this bill for over 500 days. The bill includes more than 70 bipartisan amendments. This is a good start. This bill will establish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau as a watchdog agency charged with protecting consumers. CFPB will be to our financial health what the Food and Drug Administration is to our food and health. It is government "for and by the people."

I agree with President Obama, who said that it's time for the Senate to "finish this chapter." Let's clean up the mess and rebuild the American economy. Let future generations have protections to draw upon to grow the economy, and pay those bills we are leaving to them.

We should all agree that it's time to take the United States on a new path - a path to create good American jobs, provide the lowest taxes in 60 years for the middle class and small businesses, and close tax loopholes that send jobs overseas.

For once - this once - we can clean up and reform Wall Street. This requires enormous sacrifice from all of us - from the wealthiest to those still working the night shift to make ends meet. It also requires courage - the kind that has been in short supply during a time of war and so many national crises.

In the end, the financial reform bill has a little of all three ingredients to rebuild America - discipline, sacrifice and courage. Let's see whether lawmakers have the stomach to embrace all three.

© 2010, United Feature Syndicate Inc.