Just No - No Ideas

Commentary By Ron Beasley

The press was not kind to the Republicans today:

 

This image above is only two of the examples at the link above.  In response the party of no and no ideas blocked the bill again today and came up with an alternative.  As Matt Yglesias points out  - still no ideas:

Damian Paletta at the Wall Street Journal offers
a summary of a 20 page draft of a GOP alternative approach to
financial regulation. Overall it�s extremely vague, but appears to be . .
. staggeringly similar to what�s already in Chris Dodd�s bill. They get
rid of the ex ante resolution fund (which brings the GOP in line with
the Obama administration�s preferences) but the resolution process is
exactly the same. The derivatives piece sounds the same as what Dodd
initially proposed, but scraps Blanche Lincoln�s swap desk spinoff idea.

It also does . . . something . . . on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac but
it�s impossible to tell what: �The Republican plan would create federal
funding limits and mandatory portfolio reductions for the companies. It
will also restrict the amount of money the government can advance the
firms.� Would be nice to know what the limits are, what the portfolio
reductions are, etc. In principle, misguided conservative passion about
the Government Sponsored Entities could play a constructive role in this
debate since congressional Democrats are possessed of a misguided
lassitude about the issue.

While the Republicans have nothing to add to the debate they are bringing in big bucks from the banksters. The longer they can drag out the inevitable the more money they get from Wall Street.  Will that money be enough to make up for the bad PR?  Time will tell.

Update:

This from Digby:

I'm hearing that smart people think forcing the Republicans to
continuously vote no on financial reform and refusing to accept their
"shitty deal" makes the Democrats look weak.

If this is true
then the Democrats should just abdicate their 59 seat majority and let
the Republicans write all the legislation from the beginning. This is
all just a supreme waste of time.

The good news is that both
parties would be able to say they voted for a Republican financial
reform bill, so that's good. We wouldn't want the Democrats to have any
advantage in what may be shaping up to be a mid-term slaughter. That
wouldn't be fair.

We can't have anything that might help the Democrats can we?