Noted

Even if we have a Democratic majority in the House and the Senate it is clear every time they manage to pass legislation, the Republican agenda wins... I had a lot of hope for the proposed consumer financial protection agency until I read this today...

Bowing to political pressure from community bankers, the House Financial Services Committee approved an exemption on Thursday for more than 98 percent of the nation’s banks from oversight by a new agency created to protect consumers from abusive or deceptive credit cards, mortgages and other loans. Representative Dennis Moore was a co-sponsor of the Miller-Moore amendment giving an exemption for banks with assets of less than $10 billion and credit unions smaller than $1.5 billion. The carve-out in legislation overhauling the regulatory system would prevent the new consumer financial protection agency from conducting annual examinations of the lending practices at more than 8,000 of the nation’s 8,200 banks, leaving only the largest banks and other lenders subject to the agency’s examiners.

Earlier in the day, the committee completed its work on a different contentious provision of the legislation when, on a nearly straight party-line vote of 43 to 26, it approved tougher regulations over the derivatives market. That provision, too, contained exemptions for many businesses.