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unhappycamper

(60,364 posts)
Fri May 24, 2013, 09:45 AM May 2013

Banks’ Lobbyists Help in Drafting Financial Bills

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/05/23/banks-lobbyists-help-in-drafting-financial-bills/?ref=business



Kenneth E. Bentsen Jr., left, a Wall Street lobbyist, at a House financial services panel meeting.

Banks’ Lobbyists Help in Drafting Financial Bills
By ERIC LIPTON and BEN PROTESS
May 23, 2013, 9:44 pm

WASHINGTON — Bank lobbyists are not leaving it to lawmakers to draft legislation that softens financial regulations. Instead, the lobbyists are helping to write it themselves.

One bill that sailed through the House Financial Services Committee this month — over the objections of the Treasury Department — was essentially Citigroup’s, according to e-mails reviewed by The New York Times. The bill would exempt broad swathes of trades from new regulation.

In a sign of Wall Street’s resurgent influence in Washington, Citigroup’s recommendations were reflected in more than 70 lines of the House committee’s 85-line bill. Two crucial paragraphs, prepared by Citigroup in conjunction with other Wall Street banks, were copied nearly word for word. (Lawmakers changed two words to make them plural.)

The lobbying campaign shows how, three years after Congress passed the most comprehensive overhaul of regulation since the Depression, Wall Street is finding Washington a friendlier place.
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Banks’ Lobbyists Help in Drafting Financial Bills (Original Post) unhappycamper May 2013 OP
This. Is. What. Is. Wrong. With. Our. Government. AndyA May 2013 #1

AndyA

(16,993 posts)
1. This. Is. What. Is. Wrong. With. Our. Government.
Fri May 24, 2013, 09:53 AM
May 2013

It's not longer "our" government, it's "their" government. Corporations with the money can hire lobbyists who actually do the work for the elected representatives, who are supposed to be looking out for the best interests of the PEOPLE.

Congress is not doing its job.

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