Feingold Speaks Out On Financial Reform

When the Senate passed the Wall Street reform bill on thursday, two Democrats both spoke and voted against it -- Russ Feingold (Wisconsin) and Maria Cantwell (Washington). Both refused to support the bill because it did not go nearly far enough in protecting Americans from another Wall Street meltdown, which would be felt throughout our economy. The last one cost this country 12,000,000 jobs. The next one could be even worse.

Yesterday, Senator Feingold sent the following letter to his supporters (one of which, I am proud to say, is me). I thought the letter deserved wider publication, so I have reprinted it below:

Washington missed a huge opportunity yesterday.

But it isn't the first time, and it's important to understand how we got here.

In the 1990s, both parties let the big banks and Wall Street firms write their own rules and eliminated Depression-era safeguards that protected the security of Main Street from the recklessness of Wall Street. It was called deregulation and I opposed it.

Then for eight years, the Bush Administration told everyone that if we just got out of Wall Street's way we would all benefit with jobs and prosperity. The fact is they were asleep at the switch while the massive Wall Street firms put their own greed ahead of us, driving our economy to the brink of another depression.

In 2008, our economy collapsed and turned everyone's life upside down. Both parties in Washington responded with a taxpayer-funded bailout because they had allowed Wall Street banks to become "too big to fail." I opposed those bailouts because taxpayers shouldn't have to pay the price for the out-of-control and irresponsible actions of those enormous Wall Street firms.

Every step of the way, I stood with Wisconsin, not Washington, and not Wall Street.

Now, for the last two years we have been paying the price for Washington's folly and Wall Street's greed with lost jobs, home foreclosures, vanishing pensions and an economy that only recently began to show signs of a slow recovery.

Yesterday, Washington had an opportunity to correct past mistakes, get tough on Wall Street, and prevent what happened before from happening again. While the financial regulatory reform legislation that passed takes some steps in the right direction, it doesn't meet Wisconsinites' demands of being tough enough and it doesn't include the reforms, which I fought for, that are essential to preventing another economic meltdown.

People are struggling to recover and they needed Washington to get this right by eliminating the risk to our economy posed by "too big to fail" financial firms and by restoring the proven safeguards established after the Great Depression, which separated Main Street banks from big Wall Street firms.

But Washington wasn't tough enough in protecting taxpayers and consumers from another financial crisis. So our work isn't done and I will continue fighting for tough reforms that get the job done, because now is the time to fix a broken system that should work for Wisconsin, not Wall Street.

Sincerely,

Russ Feingold
United States Senator

There were several amendments that were co-sponsored by Senator Feingold, and which would have made the reform bill much better. Sadly, none of them were approved (probably because they would have put some real teeth in the bill). Here are those amendments which should have been approved to protect ordinary Americans:

· Cantwell-McCain-Feingold amendment to restore the Glass-Steagall firewall between Wall Street and Main Street

· Senator Dorgan’s “too big to fail” amendment, which requires that no financial entity be permitted to become so large that its failure threatens the financial stability of the U.S.

· Brown-Kaufman amendment proposing strict limits on the size of financial institutions

· Dorgan amendment to ban so-called naked credit default swaps, speculative bets that played a role in the economic crisis

· Merkley-Levin amendment to prohibit any bank with government insured deposits from engaging in high-risk finance, like investing in hedge funds or private equity funds

Senator Feingold is running for re-election this year in Wisconsin. He is one of the few true progressives in the United States Senate, and we really need for him to be sent back to Washington. If you believe as I do that we need all the progressives in Washington that we can get, then it would be nice if you could throw a few dollars his way to help out his campaign. You can do that by going to his campaign website right here. You'll be glad you did.