If Democrats want to pass financial reform, they've got to round up three more votes. One of them likely belongs to Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), who joined Republicans yesterday in voting not to debate the bill.
Remember health reform, when Nelson held out until his party gave Nebraska a break on Medicaid, the famous Cornhusker Kickback? Now Nelson may be holding out for a deal for Nebraska's wealthiest citizen, super-investor Warren Buffett. The provision, which fell out of the bill on Monday, would have protected Buffet's Berkshire Hathway firm from having to set aside as much as $8 billion to cover $63 billion in existing derivatives contracts.
Has Nelson forgotten how the Cornhusker Kickback saga played out? That it became a huge embarrassment for him personally, for his party, and for his state? These close votes on big issues are a great opportunity for Senators with specific policy priorities to get things done. It's an opportunity that Nelson squandered on health care by asking for something petty and squalid, and it's something he seems to want to squander anew with this purely parochial concern for the interests of his richest constituent.
Democrats in the Senate say they'll keep calling for cloture votes, to let debate on financial reform begin.
Leave a Comment:
I was glad that the Reichists killed the debate. The current reform bill is not even a slap on the hand. The banks need to be broken-up and greatly regulated. Any reform must also include severe criminal penalties for Wall Street, when they break the law.
Nelson voted 'no' because he knew the votes weren't there. Warren Buffet knows the rules of the road so this was a token vote for Nelson. He's on thin ice and knows that he'll need to vote 'yes' to keep his committees and continue to caucus with the Dems. Harry Reid could go rogue at any time and actually start to punish the Blue Dogs for their waywardness.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703465204575208030785525128.html?mod=rss_whats_news_us
Excerpt:
Berkshire Hathaway employees have given Mr. Nelson $75,550 over his political career, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Mr. Nelson owned between $500,000 and $1 million in Berkshire stock as of May 2009, according to disclosure records.
A spokesman for Mr. Nelson said Friday that money had no influence in Mr. Nelson's role in the matter and that Mr. Nelson has long felt that new laws shouldn't apply retroactively to existing contracts.
I'm all for a step in the right direction, and that's what this is. Find a bill that was perfect and didn't need tweaking I'll show you an absence of interest.
The real story, the one that Boehner has been winning at, is the belief that writting a bill is a backroom deal. The truth of the matter is, that lobbyists and special interest are the backroom deals.
We have four months to turn this waterloo concept completely around. Make their talking points a admission of not doing America's job, and instead being a mouthpiece for the real backroom deals.
I'm a nebraskan and i'm deeply saddened by my own senator voting no to even debating the bill. Does he forget that he has more than one constituent in the state other than warren buffet.
The problem is the filibuster. There is a place for it for Senators to take stands on issue of conscience, but it was not meant to be used as a matter of course as a cyncial political tactic. My solution: give each Senator the right to filibuster once a year, no more, no less.
Another thought about the filibuster: imagine that it was just one Senator who was doing all this filibustering. He or she would be thought of as disruptive, much like a school boy who disrupts a class [I know this having been a teacher.] But since it is all the Republicans who do it, there is a permission given to do it because of the group's support. They sometimes call it Group Think or perhaps better Mob Hysteria.