Lisa Simpson
Apr 26,2010
In: Finance

Obama is Flexing his Muscles Regarding Financial Regulations

Obama is flexing his muscles regarding financial regulations.

The fight for health care reforms has taught Obama that he must be more assertive. It is this new attitude that will make him flex his muscles when tackling financial regulatory reforms. He is determined to strengthen financial regulations. His role is now more visible. Recently he has been thrusting harder for this measure by giving his all out support to certain specific clauses and coming down harshly on the top Republican in the Senate for spreading wrong information.

He is scheduled to deliver a historic speech at Cooper Union to call upon the Congress for a quick nod for reforms in financial regulation to put brakes on a rerun of the last meltdown in Wall Street that led to the Great Depression.
Gloria Borger, a noted political analyst of CNN said that the role of the President on this reform regarding financial regulation is “very different from health care reform.” She added, “On health care reform, it took the president quite some time to start getting involved.” But for financial matters he is knocking on Wall Street. The White House has given out hints that a compromise related to a liquidation fund amounting to $50 billion that the Republicans had opposed is in the offing. Timothy Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury is involved in the talks. Borger said, “This is a White House that wants to get this done, and the President will be out there personally doing it.”

Politically the ideal of tightening regulation rules for Wall Street operations is more popular than matters about health care. Obama has taken a hands-on approach and has even threatened veto if the proposals are watered down. This will help the Democrats hammer out the details of the bill with the Republicans.
The aggressive stand taken by Obama is serving another purpose. The message is being spread that will put a stop to a repeat of the public criticism that had been directed against the health care reform. The Republicans had largely been responsible for spreading wrong information. When these misleading information was being spread Obama and his fellow Democrats did not react strong and fast. This led to the Democrats facing angry constituents. It took many months for the wrong information to be corrected. But this time the President gave the counter blow timely and quickly. He was quick to rise to the defense when Mitch McConnell the minority leader of the Senate (Republican/Kentucky) said that the reforms would institutionalize the bailouts by the federal government. Obama pinpointed him in his reply in his weekly address over the radio and the Internet.