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JayBerg,

Perhaps you also asked what GW Bush did when he signed the Emergency Economic Stability Act and the Troubled Asset Relief Program in 2008. TARP asked for $700 billion but the Dodd-Frank Act reduced that to $475 billion.

The opportunity to put strong conditions on the banks before getting the cash was there in 2008 and later but how realistic is it that that would have happened. There was a full blown panic going on in Washington, DC. Sept 18, 2008, Bernanke and Paulson were screaming the sky was falling saying $5.5 trillion would disappear by 2pm that day and the world economy would collapse in 24 hours. They wanted that money badly but with as few strings as possible. Both R and D legislators later said they were upset at being lied to.

Spending legislation originates in the House of Representatives. A bill cannot become law without consent of the Senate and the President. Presidents campaign for what they want to see done but they can't write the actual bills. They can only sign or not sign the legislation into law. You also have to ask what our legislators have done.

After the Enron fiasco, the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act was overwhelmingly passed (House 423 to 3, Senate 99 to 1) to deal with the massive corporate accounting fraud of many corps, WorldCom, Tyco, etc. Corporations went down and CEO's went to jail. Much fraud did get cleaned up but SOX should have been stronger which can also be said of the Dodd-Frank and Volcker Rule later.

Since then, Republicans have continually pushed hard to delay, weaken, defund and repeal SOX, Dodd-Frank and the Volcker Rule and any legislation for consumer protection or rein in banks or Wall Street. All you have to do is look at their bills. Every GOP presidential candidate said repeal SOX and Dodd-Frank. In 2011, Rep. Spencer Bachus, chairman of the House banking committee told the Birmingham News, "In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks." It's pretty clear where the Republicans' priorities are and that is to keep on letting banks/Wall Street regulate themselves. I remember Alan Greenspan saying in a 2008 hearing that he was in "shocked disbelief" that the banks couldn't police themselves causing the meltdown. I don't know if he was really that naive, stupid or just covering his backside.

I ask, what are the House and Senate Republicans doing to prevent another financial bubble collapse and from our taxpayer money paying for it? Where are their bills to address that? I see a number of Democratic legislators trying...I see zero Republican legislators.

From: Fix the sequester

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