Wall Street Gears Up Its Stealth Attack [View all]

[Triana]

Lobbyists are flocking to Capitol Hill, seeking to further weaken financial regulation through spending bill riders.

It’s appropriations season again on Capitol Hill, and that means the halls of Congress are crowded with Wall Street lobbyists looking for regulatory relief in the form of legislative “riders” attached to must-pass spending bills.

“Once again, it’s like ringing the dinner gong for the lobbyists,” declared Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday. “They are swarming this place. Because they have all kinds of goodies that they want to slip into the legislation.”

Financial services industry lobbyists aren’t the only ones pressing lawmakers to attach policy riders to the fiscal 2017 appropriations bills now under consideration on Capitol Hill. Riders promoted by corporate or conservative interests would weaken a broad range of worker safety, environmental and women’s health protections, say progressive activists who organized the May 18 call to urge Congress to pass a “clean” budget free from ideological riders.

But Wall Street interests historically have been among the most aggressive and successful in persuading Congress to deliver policy fixes favorable to their industry via spending bill riders — provisions that would invariably trigger public outcry if debated out in the open via the normal legislative process, but that stand a better chance when tacked onto spending bills in the dead of night.

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http://billmoyers.com/story/wall-street-gears-stealth-attack/