Word: reforms
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...Obama clearly wants reform; he's been outspoken about the need for a dramatic regulatory overhaul to prevent another financial meltdown. But he's been so outspoken - especially about the consumer agency - that it would be tough for him to accept anything less dramatic than his tough proposals. And many Democrats see an uncompromising stance against Wall Street as a political winner; if it doesn't produce a bill, they're happy to have an issue they can use against Republicans in the fall...
...other hand, watering down reform to cut a deal with the GOP could alienate a liberal base that already felt neglected after the public option was stripped out of health reform. And the health care experience showed Democrats that the horse-trading necessary to corral 60 Senators can end up producing cornhusker kickbacks that make reform unpopular...
...That leads to the most important reason for skepticism: financial reform is so complex and confusing, with so many moving parts, that excuses to say no will be exceedingly easy to find. Even a group of staunch like-minded reformers would have a hard time finding common ground; in fact, that's exactly what happened inside the Obama Administration, which is why the President recently proposed new add-on provisions limiting bank size and speculation. So how hard is it going to be for the less staunch to find something in the bill to reject? It's worth noting that...
...Most of the spotlight on reform has focused on the up-or-down question of an independent consumer agency, a fairly simple issue even for nonexperts. But reasonable reformers can and do disagree about how much power to give the Federal Reserve, how to wind down failing banks without bailouts, how to regulate "systemic risk," whether to cap the size of banks, whether to allow banks to own hedge funds or play the markets with their own cash, whether to preempt stricter state banking regulations, and countless other disputes over leverage and liquidity restrictions, payday lenders, securitization, industrial loan corporations...
...point is that reform won't pass unless every one of those issues gets resolved in the Senate, and then re-resolved to get through the House and Senate again. It could happen. But don't be surprised if in a few months you see Gregg shaking his head sadly: If only the Democrats weren't so intransigent about proprietary trading, or 15-1 leverage restrictions or something else you've never thought about, we could've had a deal. And don't be surprised if the Beltway consensus then concludes that failure was inevitable...