Jim Kuhnhenn
Associated Press via The Daily Caller
7/21/2010
WASHINGTON (AP) — Reveling over a new milestone in his presidency, a triumphant Barack Obama on Wednesday signed into law the most sweeping overhaul of lending and high-finance rules since the Great Depression, adding safeguards for millions of consumers and aiming to restrain Wall Street excesses that could set off a new recession.
The president’s signing ceremony capped nearly two years of intense and partisan debate over how to avoid a recurrence of the 2008 financial meltdown that buckled the U.S. economy and left sharp, lasting imprints on the nation’s politics and in Americans’ homes.
“Because of this law, the American people will never be asked again to foot the bill for Wall Street’s mistakes,” Obama said.
In a heated midterm election season that has dented his public support, Obama sought to put the complex law in pocketbook terms. Emphasizing provisions that guard borrowers from abusive lenders, he claimed “the strongest financial protections for consumers in the nation’s history.”
Not everyone agreed. Republicans portrayed the bill as a burden on small banks and the businesses that rely on them and argued that it will cost consumers and impede job growth.
Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, a member of the House GOP leadership, on Wednesday joined House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio in calling for the law’s repeal.
…The new rules, however, are only at a midpoint. Banking and market regulators will have up to two years to write many of the new regulations required by the law, extending uncertainty and ushering in a new phase of lobbying by financial firms…Thomas Donohue, the president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, called the law “a financial regulatory boondoggle.”…
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