{"id":380708,"date":"2010-03-02T12:16:41","date_gmt":"2010-03-02T17:16:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/economics\/2010\/03\/02\/dodd-has-work-cut-out-for-him-selling-fed-consumer-plan\/"},"modified":"2010-03-02T12:16:41","modified_gmt":"2010-03-02T17:16:41","slug":"dodd-has-work-cut-out-for-him-selling-fed-consumer-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/380708","title":{"rendered":"Dodd Has Work Cut Out For Him Selling Fed Consumer Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Initial reaction from Democratic senators and the White House was mixed for a plan Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd<\/strong> (D., Conn.) is advancing to house a new consumer-protection division within the Federal Reserve. (Long and short of it: everyone wants more details.)<\/p>\n

The plan is a compromise between Mr. Dodd and Sen. Bob Corker<\/strong> (R., Tenn.), as Democrats and Republicans have long been at odds over how best to redraw consumer rules. Not only will Mr. Dodd need some Republican support, but he\u0092ll also need Democrats to feel comfortable with the plan as well, and many Democrats are skeptical that the Fed will place enough emphasis on consumer protection.<\/p>\n

Notably, only one senator so far has indicated outright opposition to the idea (although not all senators have weighed in). Some quick takeaways:<\/p>\n

1)<\/strong> \u0093One way or another, we\u0092ve got to have more consumer protection,\u0094 said Sen. Carl Levin<\/strong> (D., Mich.). New rules must \u0093effectively protect consumers from the abominable behavior we saw\u0094 from banks.<\/p>\n

2)<\/strong> \u0093I want to see the details on this, because we can\u0092t just say we\u0092re going to allow the continuation of more of the same,\u0094 said Sen. Debbie Stabenow<\/strong> (D., Mich.). \u0093The public expects us to be the check on financial institutions in the public interest.\u0094 She said she had \u0093not decided yet what I will support.\u0094<\/p>\n

3) <\/strong> Sen. Jeff Merkley<\/strong> (D., Ore.) said he was \u0093very concerned\u0094 about the proposal, citing the \u0093number of times that monetary policy is the penthouse at the Fed, safety and soundness in the upper floors, and consumer protection has been stashed in the basement…The question I would raise is, \u0091why the Fed?\u0092\u0094 He said in the past, consumer protection at the Fed has been \u0093woefully neglected.\u0094<\/p>\n

4) <\/strong> \u0093I very much want it to be freestanding,\u0094 said Sen. Sherrod Brown<\/strong> (D., Ohio). \u0093My biggest concern is who has rule-writing power and who has enforcement power.\u0094 He also said consumer protection is always overlooked at the Fed, adding \u0093I don\u0092t know if it’s in the water at the Fed or tradition that leads to that\u0085Any conflict that might arise in the past, consumer protection has finished second, unless there\u0092s a three-way conflict, when they\u0092ve finished third.\u0094 He said he hadn\u0092t decided what he would support and what he might vote against.<\/p>\n

5)<\/strong> Sen. Bernie Sanders<\/strong> (I., Vt.) had a quick response for whether he\u0092s support putting a new consumer protection agency within the Fed. \u0093No.\u0094\u00a0 He went on: \u0093We need an independent financial consumer protection agency. Wall Street has this country through their greed and recklessness into the worst recession in modern history.\u0094 He said he\u0092d fight for an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency \u0093as strong as I possibly can.\u0094<\/p>\n

6)<\/strong> \u0093If the President decides that any proposal lacks the independence that he desires, we will work to strengthen that on the floor, understanding that the House has passed a very strong consumer finance protection requirement and the president is of the strong belief that that\u0092s what financial reform requires,\u0094 White House spokesman Robert Gibbs<\/strong> said.<\/p>\n

7)<\/strong> Sen. Richard Shelby<\/strong> (R., Ala.) said he’d be worried if a new consumer-protection division housed within the Federal Reserve had too much autonomy and was too independent of the central bank’s other policy makers. It would be “like moving the Department of Agriculture to the Pentagon and housing it over there and yet it’d be autonomous. I don’t see why that accomplishes much.” But Mr. Shelby said he’d take a look at any proposal.<\/p>\n

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Initial reaction from Democratic senators and the White House was mixed for a plan Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D., Conn.) is advancing to house a new consumer-protection division within the Federal Reserve. (Long and short of it: everyone wants more details.) The plan is a compromise between Mr. Dodd and Sen. Bob Corker […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":850,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-380708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/850"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380708\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}