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Did Obama's Inner Circle (and Rep. Melissa Bean) Kill Financial Reform?
A group of “New Democrats” led by Representative Melissa Bean has reportedly won major concessions in the financial reform fight:
The compromise reached late Wednesday between pro-reform House Democrats and the banker-friendly wing of the party could significantly weaken consumer protection in states where lawmakers support tougher rules against tactics such as predatory lending and excessive ATM fees than historically submissive federal regulators.
Barney Frank chalked up Bean’s intransigence to the lobbying of a generic group of “big banks,” without providing much in the way of details. The Huffington Post has pointed to the amount of campaign cash flowing from Wall Street, and Public Citizen released a report on the subject on Tuesday.
But “big banks” have a human side, after all; Bean draws her support from real, live, human beings. And a closer look at who these people are suggests that the Representative’s efforts are backed by financial elites tightly linked to President Obama.
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