The passage of the federal spending bill that will keep the U.S. government running until next Sept. 15 threw into sharp relief the old divisions and new alliances in Congress. At press time, the bill was set for the president’s signature.
Observations that Congress seems to have moved to the center, away from extremes of the left and right, may be mistaken. The bill was passed despite both conservative and liberal objections, but the overarching desire seems to have been to avoid another government shutdown rather than to reach consensus on anything. It recalls the marketplace swordfight scene in the first Indiana Jones movie, “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” in which Indy and his adversary establish their battle posts – and then Indy takes out a pistol and shoots the guy from a range of about 20 feet.
That scene drew laughs from the 1981 audiences in the relatively innocent pre-terrorist days. Movie lore came out later that actor Harrison Ford, who played Indy, had contracted an intestinal bug during the filming and was – well – in a hurry to get off the set.
This year’s lawmakers were certainly in a hurry to pass a bill that would keep the government going, and also to be able to get home for the holidays. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) put a wrench in that over the weekend of the 13th and 14th with their opposition to President Barack Obama’s immigration reform legislation. Their effort didn’t succeed, but a Democratic contretemps did. Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) took the opportunity of the delay to allow confirmation of 20 Obama judicial appointees, rather than wait until the following Monday.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) may have lost the immediate battle in her unsuccessful bid to defeat banking legislation that would have repealed the Dodd-Frank restriction on large banks’ ability to trade derivative contracts within FDIC-insured organizations, but she gained a form of street cred from those who saw an indication of her willingness to stand up to members of her own party, even the president. The true measurement of this apparent Pyrrhic loss is obscured due to the increasing groundswell on the part of progressive Democrats to urge Warren to run for president. So far, she’s not buying.
The big-bank financial community had lobbied hard for the Dodd-Frank repeal, taking an active hand in drafting the legislation that went into the bill. This drew ire from anyone who thinks that inserting industry-written legislation into a federal spending bill with a deadline is pulling a pistol on a swordfighter. Big banks won the near-term battle, but long-term, will they also win the war?
Just to play devil’s advocate, consider the market environment that banks of all sizes are in right now. Volatile market returns and abysmal interest rates are driving financial institutions to seek the higher returns that their clients expect. The vigor of the banking sector’s lobbying effort on the spending bill should be no surprise. To mount a thoughtful and informed response to this activity requires something other than deadline brinksmanship.
In other words, we’re not Indy, and we just can’t keep getting away with shooting the swordsman in the marketplace.
