Monday, June 15, 2009

Will Obama Accommodating His "Team of Rivals" Create a Dysfunctional Regulatory System?

Look, if there is anything that Obama needs to get right beyond health care reform, it is setting up an above-reproach banking regulatory system that fires on all cylinders. His poorest performance so far is the slack he cut banks relative to every other failing industry that gets the back of his hand.

Word of internal feuds between two Republican hold-overs whom Obama is reportedly going to co-empower this week does not make me hopeful that we are going to get the swift and decisive banking reform that America needs:
Some of Mr. Obama’s advisers and some senior Democratic lawmakers have suggested creating a single bank regulator. But the administration’s current version, which could be announced as early as this week, would not combine the regulatory agencies. Instead, it would give Mr. Dugan and Ms. Bair significant new powers — and could intensify their turf battles.
The last thing we need on top of all of the guilt-free bailout money banks received from the Obama Administration is a fractious and lumbering regulatory apparatus filled with bureaucratic gears that don't mesh. If Obama encourages these two Republicans by giving them more power, they're going to create a mess with which their party will be able to beat liberals over the head and spank Democrats in general for years to come.

There is a thin line between the idea of a "team of rivals" and a dysfunctional family jockeying with each other every Thanksgiving reunion. The Obama Administration is poised on that line, ready to fall either way this week.

1 comment:

  1. It's frustrating, bro.

    Obama is doing good things but what drives me nutz is the fact that he's stopping well short of greatness just to appease a bunch of Republican idiots who are insignificant at best.

    Obama's boldness is what won him the votes from the Democratic Left in the primary. That boldness is not gone, but has declined in the name of pragmatism.
    That is a mistake.
    We're passing up golden opportunities to advance in environment, economy, health care, criminal justice reform, and a variety of other important aspects of our lives.

    He's trading great for mediocre and he'd better realize that his legacy as a leader will read either or.

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