It must be great to be Scott Brown, voting against small businesses, but for protecting hedge funds

[ProSense]

Republicans block small business lending bill

Roll call


Ezra Klein on the deal Brown negotiated to win his vote on Wall Street Reform:

The House and Senate are reconvening the conference committee to drop the language that offended Scott Brown. CNBC has the likely compromise:

The conferees will propose ending the Treasury Department’s authority to require banks to accept additional TARP funds. While this authority would sunset over time rather than end immediately, budget rules say that this would result in a savings of something like $10 billion to $11 billion.

Additional FDIC premiums also are being considered to bring in $3.5 billion, bringing the total closer to the $19 billion the lawmakers sought to raise with the bank tax. Republicans are expected to accept this deal. The biggest banks would be subject to the higher FDIC fees, but not hedge funds, since they are not part of the FDIC system. On the other hand, smaller banks — exempted from the fee under the current bill — that operate under the FDIC system would likely find themselves footing the bill.

So rather than a bank tax, which Scott Brown worried would take capital out of the banking system, we're going to drop part of the TARP program that was ... putting capital into the banking system. And rather than making big banks and big hedge funds foot the bill, FDIC fees will be hiked so that small banks have to pay in but hedge funds don't.

[Bitwit1234]

1. BUT Buchannan says he is voting FOR the people of MA

[ProSense]

2. On the Republicans' argument,

Steve Benen:

<...>

To hear them tell it, GOP senators aren't against helping small businesses -- at least not explicitly -- but they're filibustering to get more time for more votes on more amendments to the bill.

In other words, Republicans have gone from complaining about the bill not coming up sooner to trying to drag out the process out.

So, the good news is the bill isn't dead, at least not yet. The bad news is, Republican senators are acting like spoiled children, in the hopes of eating up valuable pre-recess calendar time, making it impossible for the Senate to do anything else with its limited schedule. The energy bill is in trouble anyway, but by playing games with small businesses, making any progress on energy is looking even less likely.

Olympia Snowe was especially embarrassing this morning. Her argument was that the Senate needs to act quickly to help small businesses -- which is why she's supporting the filibuster to prevent a vote on helping small businesses.

What a ridiculous mess.

[ProSense]

3. Any comments in favor of Scott Brown? n/t