A Washington Post headline today that speaks volumes: Obama still flush with cash from financial sector despite frosty relations:
…Obama has brought in more money from employees of banks, hedge funds and other financial service companies than all the other GOP candidates combined, according to a Washington Post analysis of contribution data.
…Obama’s ties to Wall Street donors could complicate Democratic plans to paint Republicans as puppets of the financial industry, particularly in light of the Occupy Wall Street protests that have gone global over the past week. In response to the protests, the Obama campaign and other Democrats have stepped up their attacks on Romney and other Republicans for their opposition to Wall Street regulations.
One top banking executive who raises money for Obama and who requested anonymity to discuss fundraising efforts said reports of disaffection with the president “are exaggerated and overblown.” He said a strong contingent of financiers in New York, Chicago and California remain supportive of Obama and his economic policies, even as some have turned on him.
Now, all is not as it seems, as the Democratic National Committee has the ability to raise $30,800 per donor per year, whereas direct contributions to candidates’ campaign funds are capped at $5,000 per donor for the entire campaign cycle. Because Obama is the Democratic nominee for president in 2012, he is able to coordinate fundraising with the DNC, whereas because the Republican primary is still underway, the RNC is not yet coordinating with a specific candidate.
That all being said, we’re still talking about vast sums of money here, with the election over a year away. Is there not something troubling about that?
So yesterday I gave a bit of grief to Mitt Romney for being cold and calculating (or at least giving every impression that he is when it comes to the plight of homeowners) and I feel the need to point out that President Obama himself is certainly no stranger to financial industry largesse. Wall Street gave more money to President Obama in 2008 than they did John McCain, and finance has remained a key part of the President’s fundraising arsenal since.
Obama’s done an intricate dance with Big Finance since his inauguration, calling them “fat-cat bankers” and warning that his administration was “the only thing between you and the pitchforks” while appointing a very Wall Street-friendly Treasury Secretary in Tim Geithner, as well as a former VP of JP Morgan Chase as his latest Chief of Staff, Bill Daley, among other key players.
It is true, on the other hand, that President Obama helped shepherd the Dodd-Frank financial regulations through to passage in Congress. But the implementation process of such a complex bill has been met with delays in regulation writing and an apparent lack of gumption on the Administration’s part to support nominees to key oversight positions. Why is Elizabeth Warren running for the US Senate in Massachusetts and not running the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which she effectively created whole cloth? It’s due in major part to the Obama Administration’s not weighing in with more support for Warren against predictable Senate Republican intransigence in blocking her nomination. The fight over securing Warren’s nomination would have been a titanic one, as the financial industry was as opposed to the creation of the CFPB as anything else in Dodd-Frank, and 44 Senate Republicans promised to block any nominee to the CFPB’s Directorship, not just Warren. And yet, President Obama, despite what could have been a prime opportunity to highlight Republican tactics that negatively affect consumers, didn’t seem to have the fight in him on this one, for reasons still unknown.
A further area of concern has been the ongoing “50-state” Attorneys General housing settlement negotiations, which have sought to release the big banks from any liabilities for their criminal ways during the housing boom of the 00s in exchange for a paltry $20 billion or so in fines. See the video below with Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden (son of Joe) giving a great overview of the major issues:
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Despite the appearance of massive fraud by every major bank, the Obama Administration has been pushing rather hard to have all 50 AGs sign on to the agreement, which is ostensibly narrowly related to the robosigning fraud unearthed last year, however the negotiated terms of the agreement attempt to release the banks from all sorts of liabilities unrelated to robosigning. That a number of upright state AGs have stood up against such attempts to sweep illegal activities under the rug may not be terribly surprising, but that the Obama Administration would be aligning itself with the criminals in this case so blatantly certainly gives one pause. Does Obama think promoting a less bank-friendly investigation might hurt his fundraising opportunities with Wall Street? Such a consideration can’t be far from the top of his mind…When Obama’s reelection is going to be fought against a GOP that still considers wholesale deregulation to be a viable job creation strategy despite all evidence to the contrary, he has to give Big Finance some carrots to keep their contributions flowing to his coffers, no?
And that’s the crux of the problem. That’s what Occupy Wall Street is about – the failure of institutions to offer any alternative to the rampant corruption that is right before all of our eyes. There is no alternative to the current system, and no viable way to use “democracy” to achieve the real change that people appear to seek, as the votes are rigged in favor of the winners. Justice itself is being undercut systematically so that those who have won historically can keep right on winning, consequences be damned. It’s no way to run a country.
For his part, Obama has presided over a time that has been marked by major investigations and public exposures of unbelievably bad behavior and rampant greed among the elites who run the economy; a time where an average citizen can find any number of things to be unspeakably outraged about. Obama’s time in office has coincided with a loss of trust in institutions that would have happened with or without his being President. And yet, it behooves me to ask how much he himself has contributed to the loss of trust Americans feel in their government? Sure he inherited a bad situation from his predecessor, but where has he exacerbated the structural problems in our society with his choices? I’ve been attempting to map out some of the terrain where I feel there has been a governmental failure on this blog for some time now; not because I am opposed to our President, far from it. It is because so much of the government’s response to issues of structural criminality have been to mask those issues, to sweep them under the rug, to choose not to act in the face of injustice in the hopes that the average low-information voter will not pick up on that act of collusion. Obama or no, I won’t stand for that.
I believe in a better, stronger, more just and more free America – I have to believe in it; I’m a member of the generation that will be picking up the pieces when those in power today have long departed from the scorched earth they are rapidly creating in their wake. I believe that we can have a government that works on behalf of the people, and I intend to do my part to make that happen. But when the government is itself an impediment to the realization of those goals, when it uses its might and state secrets privileges and its power to regulate (or not) in the service of those who would bend government to their own nefarious ends, I feel the need to call attention to those acts as a lowly scribe/blogger.
I have a proposal in the works that will present a more positive vision for the future, that will present some concrete actions individuals can take to change their own lives as well as their communities for the better, and I sincerely hope to present it on this blog soon. This blog, in the attempt at chronicling so much wrongdoing, has taken on a terribly negative tone, and I hope to change that in the very near future.
Thanks for reading, as always, and stay tuned.
P.S. – Here’s a great read from Charles P. Pierce of Esquire, taking on Romney’s callous discussion of foreclosures and the curveball that the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts threw his way today. Great fun, or not.
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