GOP blocks financial reform (and that's just fine?)
Here are some blogger reactions to Monday’s vote by all 41 GOP senators, along with Democrat Ben Nelson, to block debate of the financial reform bill.
BarbinMD at The Daily Kos:
Yesterday the Party of No confirmed that the only time they’ll say yes is to Wall Street. And now everyone knows it.
Chris Bowers at Open Left dissects the political chess game:
Keep in mind that Senate Dems knew they would lose the vote at least a day ago, and went ahead with the vote anyway. They wanted to have the vote, even if it went down. Just having the vote draws a lot of attention, which is badly needed in this fight.
Brian Beutler at TPMDC remarks that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has turned into a pit bull:
You don’t have to go back in time too far to remember when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid ran the Senate in a way that drove progressive Democrats into fits of apoplexy: timidly, and unwilling to use the body’s rules for political advantage. Suddenly, with health care reform behind him, and bleak political prospects for both himself and his party staring him in the face, Reid has decided that it’s finally time to charge hard.
Greg Sargent at The Plum Line says the GOP is out on a limb with its opposition to financial reform:
Republicans gambled that they could get away with arguing that their opposition to the legislation shows they are the party defending the people from the depredations of a shadowy alliance between Wall Street and its Big Government enablers. But there are mounting signs that the GOP’s core argument along these lines — that the measure will lead to endless taxpayer bailouts — isn’t resonating.
Richard Eskow in the Huffington Post says it’s clear that the millions that Wall Street spends to influence Congress is paying off:
The GOP has now gone on record officially as saying it wants to block the Senate from even discussing a financial reform bill. They don’t want to let the American people see and hear a debate on this topic from their Senators. When it comes to financial reform, they don’t want the democratic process to take place at all.