barney frank

First they delayed the reforms; now they’re trying to expedite them.
The House approved legislation today to have its previously passed credit card reforms take effect next month, rather than three months later.
The bill is designed to fix a problem the lawmakers themselves created.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner got an earful last week from House Democrats wary of the White House proposal to pay for government rescues of Wall Street firms by taxing healthy competitors only after Washington steps in. The critics want companies to pre-pay instead into a kind of sitting insurance fund to be used for the [...]

Testifying before House lawmakers yesterday, Sheila Bair, head of  the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, endorsed much of the controversial proposal to grant the White House new powers to take over Wall Street investment firms when their failure threatens the larger financial system.
A timely, orderly resolution process that could be applied to both banks and non-bank [...]

“Mr. Secretary, I’m not a man that fears this administration or you,” Rep. Paul Kanjorski (D-Pa.) told Geithner. “But I do fear the accumulation of power exercised by someone in the future that can be extraordinary.”

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who’s testifying this morning before the House Financial Services Committee on legislation empowering the White House to take over Wall Street firms when their failure threatens the finance system on the whole, just made a curious claim. Asked by Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) whether the legislation grants the White House the [...]

Different bill; same concerns.
House Democrats introduced legislation Tuesday granting the White House broad new authority to bail out investment houses and other non-banks when their potential collapse is a threat to the larger financial system. But while the bill goes far beyond a similar White House proposal in terms of protecting taxpayers, Rep. Brad Sherman [...]

On Monday, it was Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) unveiling legislation to rein in overdraft fees. Today it’s Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) and Barney Frank (D-Mass.) doing the same.
Both bills would require banks to get customer consent before enrolling them in the overdraft protection program; both would cap the number of overdraft fees at six [...]

Democrats on Capitol Hill were all cheers when they passed first-of-its-kind credit card reform earlier in the year — only to become publicly indignant when the card companies began hiking rates and fees in advance of those changes taking hold.
So after some Democrats initially delayed the implementation date until next year — a naked bow [...]

What seemed like a clear path ahead was upstaged by the health care battle.

In April, we ran a piece about how some Democrats had bowed to the wishes of the banking industry and delayed their credit card reforms until next year, even as consumers have struggled to keep up amid the recession. Inevitably, the banks have used the delay by busily installing rate and fee hikes to beat [...]