Wall Street is flooding Congress with lobbyists seeking to curtail key parts of the sweeping regulatory bill
America's major banks are pouring millions of dollars into an apparently successful attempt to weaken Barack Obama's finance reform bill, currently stalled in Congress by Republican opposition.
In the face of deep public anger over the financial crisis and government bailouts, banks have flooded Congress with lobbyists seeking to curtail key parts of the sweeping regulatory bill – such as provisions to create an office for consumer protection and more strongly regulate the vast derivatives market.
JP Morgan Chase is at the forefront of lobby spending with $1.5m (£980,000) in the first quarter of this year alone – a sharp rise on the same period in 2009 – followed closely by Citigroup. Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs have also spent more than $1m on lobbying Congress this year, more than double their previous spending.
The banking industry is second only to healthcare interests in the amount it spends on political lobbying.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/apr/27/us-banks-lobbyists-finance-reform-bill