TARP

The finance industry, seeming to forget that it was responsible for the economic turmoil that’s pushed unemployment above 10 percent, is lobbying furiously (and successfully) against Democratic legislation designed to protect consumers and prevent a similar episode in the future.
Yesterday, industry representatives held a conference call with reporters boasting about just how effective they’re fight [...]

Equating today’s rising credit card rates to usury, several House Democrats today announced plans to introduce legislation capping credit card rates at 16 percent.
“Things were a lot better for the average person in this country when we had usury caps,” Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), head of the House Rules Committee, said in a statement announcing her bill. [...]

As the Senate idles awaiting a procedural vote on unemployment legislation — a vote that’s held up activity on all other pending legislation and nominations — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) this morning offered a solution that might speed things up: “Maybe [Republicans] needed another ACORN amendment,” Reid said, with no lack of sarcasm. [...]

It’s no mystery that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is the ultimate Wall Street insider. But it seems that more and more Democrats are losing their patience with what they perceive as his protectionism of the finance industry at the expense of consumers and taxpayers. The latest to weigh in is Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), who [...]

As we just noted, Senate Republicans are urging consideration of three amendments on the proposal to extend federal unemployment benefits, but only two are the source of disagreement between the parties.
The first, sponsored by Sen. Mike Johanns (R-Neb.), would fund the extension using unspent stimulus money, rather than extending a small surtax on employers, as [...]

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 [...]

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), a vocal critic of exorbitant executive pay, fears new legislation will give competitive advantage to the biggest banks.

Mitt Romney at the Values Voter Summit this morning:
When government is trying to take over health care, buying car companies, bailing out banks, and giving half the White House staff the title of czar – we have every good reason to be alarmed and to speak our mind!
Romney at the Conservative Political Action Conference in [...]

One watchdog says the strange giving patterns just shows “the financial industry isn’t sure what’s happening to itself.”

Since the Wall Street bailout was signed into law last October, critics of the strategy have often been met with a central reassurance from leaders of the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve: The taxpayer-funded rescue, these officials have said, is not a bailout at all, but an investment that could very well return the [...]