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AFR in the News: Republicans and Wall Street Say To Hell With Protecting the Public! (Moyers & Co.)

“Since December, Congress has twice passed measures to weaken regulations in the Dodd-Frank financial law that are intended to reduce the risk of another financial meltdown. In the last election cycle, Wall Street banks and financial interests spent over $1.2 billion on lobbying and campaign contributions, according to Americans for Financial Reform. Their spending strategy appears to be working. Just this week, the House passed further legislation that would delay by two years some key provisions of Dodd-Frank. “[Banks] want to be able to do things their way, and that’s very dangerous.” MIT economist Simon Johnson tells Bill.

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AFR in the News: Republican Assault on Dodd-Frank Act Intensifies (Financial Times)

“Marcus Stanley, policy director of Americans for Financial Reform, which backs tougher regulation of Wall Street, said banks and their Republican allies were seeking to chip away at Dodd-Frank with a series of piecemeal delays and limits on regulatory authority. ‘The strategy is to take many of these bills and amendments and combine them together into packaged legislation. In combination, these so-called technical fixes will very significantly undermine Dodd-Frank and make it impossible to effectively police the financial sector,’ he said.”

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AFR in the News: In New Congress, Wall St. Pushes to Undermine Dodd-Frank Reform (NY Times)

“The financial industry has been methodical, drafting technically complicated legislation that can pass the heavily Republican House with a few Democratic votes. And then, once approved, Wall Street has pushed to tack such measures on to larger bills considered too important for the White House to block. ‘This all works together: Put it up for stand-alone vote, get some Democrats on it, and then when you push it onto a must-pass bill, say it’s a bipartisan bill that’s already passed,’ said Marcus Stanley, policy director of Americans for Financial Reform.

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AFR Statement: Two Key Democrats Get Behind a Wall Street Transaction Tax

A senior House Democrat, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), moved today to put the idea of a Wall Street transaction tax firmly on the table of the national policy debate. Rep. Van Hollen’s proposal – along with a swift statement of support from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) – is excellent news. AFR also strongly supports a second element of Van Hollen’s plan, which would sharply limit the tax deductability of corporate pay above $1 million.

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AFR Letter: Reject HR 185, the Regulatory Accountability Act

AFR sent a letter to members of Congress, urging them to oppose HR 185, the “Regulatory Accountability Act.” This legislation would hamstring agencies charged with the oversight of our largest banks by requiring them to comply with a host of additional bureaucratic and procedural requirements designed to make effective action virtually impossible.

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AFR in the News: Main Street Banks Play the Wall Street Lobbying Game (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

“PNC, the nation’s 10th largest bank, hasn’t spent the past few years just building itself into a financial behemoth. Like many other banks, it’s built up political capital too. And last year, it spent some of that currency to help roll back a regulation [that] barred banks with federally insured deposits from engaging in certain potentially high-risk financial transactions… Swaps have legitimate uses, but ‘when things go wrong in this area, they go very very wrong,’ said Marcus Stanley [of] Americans for Financial Reform.”