Coming Soon in Congress: Health Care, Cap & Trade, More Jobs, & Protecting Consumers From Their Own Stupidity.

Nick Gillespie | September 8, 2009

Once the president finishes disrupting K-6 graders' return to school after the Labor Day weekend, Barack Obama and his Democratic colleagues are ready and willing to push an "aggressive" agenda. From USA Today via Cincinnati Enquirer:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., presents an aggressive to-do list: "Delivering on health insurance reform and clean energy, providing jobs by improving our infrastructure, and reining in the behavior on Wall Street that contributed to the economic downturn."

Financial legislation is also on the table. The House Financial Services Committee is expected to consider a bill this month on Obama's proposals to protect consumers from financial industry excesses.

More here.

Of course, at the very tippy-top of Sen. Reid's to-do list is to raise entry fees on foreign tourists in a misguided attempt to woo them to our shores.

While health insurance and "clean energy" get a lot of the ink and a lot of worry, the various pieces of consumer-protection and financial-industry regulations worming their way through the system are equally far-reaching and incredibly disturbing. Watch these two videos for details on the Dems' plans to simplify your mortgage, credit cards, and investments options for your own good.

Too Big To Fail 2.0: This Time It's Personal Finance. And Just About Everything Else.

Obama's

CFPA: The Next Great Leap Backwards for Consumer "Rights"

Comments

Kyle Jordan|9.8.09 @ 8:27AM|#

"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., presents an aggressive to-do list: "Delivering on health insurance reform and clean energy, providing jobs by improving our infrastructure, and reining in the behavior on Wall Street that contributed to the economic downturn."

Please, do so.

I really do wonder if the left is blind to the animosity they're creating. Or, if they're trying to kamikaze their bullshit plans knowing they may lose big in the elections, but feel it's worth it if they can force through their crap before that happens.

Rich|9.8.09 @ 8:47AM|#

I basically agree with Kyle, except: don't raise the debt limit and see what happens.

|9.8.09 @ 9:00AM|#

The ... Committee is expected to consider a bill this month on Obama's proposals to protect consumers from financial industry excesses.

Can we please call bullshit on this kind of language from reporters? What are the proposals and what are their functions? "Protecting consumers" is pure PR fluff.

|9.8.09 @ 9:11AM|#

I flipped by CSPAN this weekend and caught a book notes by some guy from the NYTimes who had written a book on the home mortgage crisis. At first, it was pretty interesting. He talked about how it was unclear if the big banks were corrupt or just stupid for buying up subprime lenders during the boom.

But, then it got to how this guy felt the lenders had "targeted the minorities". His example was of a "El Salvadoran" family (they were citizens so it is unclear why they are Salvadoran rather than Americans) who were being evicted from their $700,000 McMansion in Manassas, VA. They had previously made $200,000 on another house and had dumped it all in on another house and now they were broke.

The guy used the term "Salvadorian" like a Jim Crow racist used the term "black", as if every Salvadorian was some kind of Juan Valdez like figure complete with mule. I wanted to scream at the TV. These people were obviously sophisticated enough to make $200,000 flipping a house. Instead of being considered speculators who got burned, they were "victims of predatory lending practices". What a crock of shit. If the market hadn't tanked and they had made money on the McMansion, they wouldn't have shared any of the money with me. Yet, since they lost out, I am now expected to pay taxes to bail them out.

Xeones|9.8.09 @ 9:18AM|#

Quit being racist, John.

So who's going to protect consumers from Congressional stupidity?

|9.8.09 @ 9:23AM|#

Sneaky! The Enquirer link goes back to Jesse Walker's piece on Obama's speech today.

|9.8.09 @ 9:29AM|#

If you think Obama is unpopular now, wait until he tries to double people's electric bills through cap and theft and take away the secret ballot in union elections. If anything socialized medicine polls well compared to cap and theft and card check. If he tries those two on the heels of Obamacare, he will be looking at Bush like approval numbers by next spring.

Michael|9.8.09 @ 10:02AM|#

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., presents an aggressive to-do list: "Delivering on health insurance reform...

Wait...say what?

Zeb|9.8.09 @ 11:37AM|#

When will the stupid become a protected class? It seems to me that the less scrupulous lenders and brokers were targeting the stupid, if anyone. "$500k adjustible mortgage. What could possibly go wrong?"

|9.8.09 @ 5:21PM|#

""""When will the stupid become a protected class?"""

When screaming fire in a theater was no longer free speech.