This week the house worked on a bill HR 992 otherwise known
has the Swaps Regulatory improvement act. This bill passed the house by a
bipartisan overwhelming majority 292 House members voted for the bill and 122
house members voted against it. The purpose of this bill was in response to the
2008 collapse of the banks and this bill gives banks more resources and options
to prevent events like what happened in 2008 to happen again. This allows the banks multiple ways to prevent
banks giving out high risk interest rates like what happened in 2008. The
Congress used some of the provisions in the Dodd Frank Bill which made banks to
move commodities out of their services.
This bill requires banks to move all non-government regulated services
out of the federal banks duties. So the federal government is not involved in
these duties. The main purpose of
this bill is for risky things like interest rates and commodities to be
separate from the federal government.
This would avoid the need for government to bailout banks like in 2008, which
cost the government tons of money.
Some
politicians are very critical of the bill which passed the house. Republican
Congressmen Jeb Hansarling who is also chairman of the house financial services
committee is worried about cost increases associated with this bill. He said in
a quote “This not only increases transaction costs, which are ultimately paid
by the consumers, it also makes our financial system less secure by forcing
swap trading out of regulated institutions”. New York’s Congresswomen Carolyn Maloney states people in
both parties understand this change needs to be made including the chairman of
the Federal Reserve. The Congresswomen who also the 2nd ranking
Democrat on the financial services stated although there are issues with the
bill she feels it “would weaken both financial stability and strong regulation
of derivatives activities” that this bill still gives some financial
protections to taxpayers and banks.
Chairman of the Federal
Reserve Ben Bernanke said although
he doesn’t agree with the Dodd Frank provisions he still supports the bill because it allows for more protection and financial
stability. This bill still allows banks to keep 90 percent of their power, but
The Hill mentions that banks are not happen with giving up ten percent of their
duties, The white house and President Obama said will not sign the bill,
although it passed the house because it will impose new regulations and on the
department of agriculture and retail investors and the White house feels it
will harm our business climate. According to Bloomberg this bill allows the
house to move some of these duties banks were performing to a more capitalized
entity making business to be done easier.
Although
this bill is controversial as well as support from both parties it still will
have hard time passing the Senate according to The Hill. This bill this proves
even with bi-partisan support and it passing the house by an overwhelming
majority it still hard with our political climate to get anything passed in
Washington and gets the President and the Senates support. Only time will tell
if Congress will be able to make changes to get the President support and this
bill signed into law?
Following the
government shutdown, neither party in Congress surfaced from the whirlpool
disaster unscathed. On both sides
of the aisles, Representatives and Senators alike lost the faith of their
constituents propagated by the extensive media coverage of members blaming
their colleagues across the aisle.
Recently, in order to regain some credit, Republicans have adopted the
strategy to articulate – very publicly – the ways in which the implementation
of the Affordable Care Act is failing.
All week, Fox news host Sean Hannity, on his nightly segment has been
covering the topic by bringing on his show Americans who have been negatively
affected by Obamacare, mainly through their inability to get “equivalent”
coverage.[1] He highlights isolated individuals who
feel the new healthcare act has hurt their capacity to obtain quality healthcare
coverage, either needing to pay more for an equivalent plan, or settle for a
plan that covers less. [2] Members of Congress have been weighing in also hoping to
place the President and Republicans in bad light, such as GOP Senator Dan
Coats, who targeted the flaws in the website, which the President himself has
acknowledged is in the process of being “improved”.[3]
One
of the main GOP figures that had previously fueled the fire of discontent with
the new healthcare legislation in
Congress, Texas Senator and Tea Party member, Ted Cruz, was ostracized from his
party by fellow Republican Mitt Romney who failed to name him as an “capable”
electoral candidate for the 2016 presidential election.[4] Although Romney holds no seat of elected office, he can still
be considered a member of the GOP with significant clout because of his
election as the Republican candidate for the 2012 presidential election, and
the fact that he still garners significant media coverage for naming a few GOP
politicians as potential nominees.
A
creative reporter from the National Journal quoted an old saying from John
Boenher ‘“When your opponent is committing suicide, don't shoot him.”’ The
article continues the describe Republicans actions regarding the failing of the
implementation of the act – showing no attempts at helping along the execution
of the act, but instead, like Senator Coats has done, continue to highlight the
failures of the bill, which party pushed its passage, and in some cases,
continuing investigations into the law.[5]
America knows that Congress is split in ideology, there is no doubt
about that post-government shutdown, but the actions of GOP members of Congress
illustrate vengeance and continued stubbornness as if the government shut-down
was only a slap on the wrist. It
appears the party has failed to learn compromise, especially in situations
where they are unable to fully control.
The continued polarization of Congress will only further hasten the drop
in approval from the public which, can only go as low as zero.
[1] http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/hannity/index.html
[2] Ibid.
[3] http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/02/gop-senator-hammers-obamacare-in-weekly-address/,
http://www.masslive.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/10/president_barack_obama_takes_r.html
[4] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/03/mitt-romney-ted-cruz_n_4208490.html
[5] http://www.nationaljournal.com/daily/gop-strategy-on-obamacare-shut-up-and-leave-town-20131103
In addition, Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, who is the public face of the Obamacare plan finally decided to choose to speak in front of Congress. There has been much debate and bickering going on in Congress in regards to her admitting to the botched rollout of Obamacare. She has not publicly admitted to its “failure” until this past week in Congress. Ms. Sebelius was quoted, “You deserve better. I apologize.” Her speech in front of Congress was solely an apology with her never inserting any type of criticism of the President or anyone from a specific party, etc. She holds the full responsibility of the rollout of the bill and its consequences. We found this to be somewhat surprising because of all the criticism she has been receiving. She endured a lot of Members of Congress grilling her specifically on misleading the public to believe that it was ridiculous of the GOP or other Members of Congress to not vote for the bill in the midst of the government shutdown.
In addition, Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sebelius, who is the public face of the Obamacare plan finally decided to choose to speak in front of Congress. There has been much debate and bickering going on in Congress in regards to her admitting to the botched rollout of Obamacare. She has not publicly admitted to its “failure” until this past week in Congress. Ms. Sebelius was quoted, “You deserve better. I apologize.” Her speech in front of Congress was solely an apology with her never inserting any type of criticism of the President or anyone from a specific party, etc. She holds the full responsibility of the rollout of the bill and its consequences. We found this to be somewhat surprising because of all the criticism she has been receiving. She endured a lot of Members of Congress grilling her specifically on misleading the public to believe that it was ridiculous of the GOP or other Members of Congress to not vote for the bill in the midst of the government shutdown.
The
Secretary also has been avoiding meeting with Congress since as early as
October 1st, when certain representatives first reached out to her
to possibly improve the bill before it was put into action. This seems to have been an issue
because she also did not complete the Obamacare informational website early
enough, so that the public could be well aware of this bill. This information would have been
exposed if she had met with Congress as early as they previously wanted to and
thus delayed the passing of the bill.
It angered most of
the Members of the GOP as well as the majority of the Democrats. However, we feel that Representative
Henry Waxman of California (D) did make a good point in saying to these
members, “Honestly, the early glitches in this rollout will soon be forgotten
[by the public].” We definitely think
he has a point, and it is important to recognize the faults of the earlier
launch of Obamacare but we can only learn from our mistakes. Now, the goal of Congress should be to
stop pointing the fingers and act in a way that is in the best interests of the
people in working to revise and revamp the Affordable Health Care Act as a
whole.
*Source cited:
No comments:
Post a Comment