Small Town News

Sensibility must trump financial abilities

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Summary: A legislative first step must be followed by many more if we want prosperity and safety for all.

Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives got a head start of what could be a defining decade for our country.

Coming off the worst economic collapse in eight decades, the House passed its major financial reform proposal in a close 223-202 vote.

It would create an agency to protect consumers from abusive lending practices, set rules for the trading of some of the sophisticated financial instalments that fueled the crisis, and take steps to reduce the threat that the failure of one or two huge banks or investment firms could topple the entire economy.

Whether all of those measures will become law, however, is uncertain because the Obama administration wants certain revisions and the Senate will not take up its version of the legislation until this year.

What the House has done is cast out a line for sensibility. Not surprisingly, the move didn't come without a fierce battle.

A study by the non-profit Center for Responsive Politics found that commercial banks along with credit and finance companies fought the House bill with everything they had. These industries barked about new regulations and oversight.

Again, not so surprisingly, these industries fought with the usual tactics that the common man cannot access - big, heaping loads of cash.

Consider this. Members of the House who voted against the measure collected 70 percent more in campaign contributions from commercial banks since 1989, on average, than those supported it. And they raised an average of 50 percent more from credit and finance companies than the bill's supporters.

It's a good bet that this type of "pay for playing along" mode of operation will continue as the bill enters the U.S. Senate later this year.

To think that the industries that nearly crippled global economies don't need more regulation is twisted logic.

To think we don't need regulation is to believe that the markets are unbiased and completely neutral. To believe that is blatantly irrational and the foundation of the economic turmoil in which we find ourselves.

No matter what industries give, our leaders need to drop the ideology of "money rules all" and, in turn, stop giving away money without expectation of reasonable return and productivity.

Both sides need to consider reason or the country will have to endure another decade of wallowing in economic turmoil.



Copyright 2010 Turtle Mountain Star, Rolla, North Dakota. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from SmallTownPapers, Inc.

© 2010 Turtle Mountain Star Rolla, North Dakota. All Rights Reserved. This content, including derivations, may not be stored or distributed in any manner, disseminated, published, broadcast, rewritten or reproduced without express, written consent from DAS.

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