Congress to the rescue — again

To the editor:
    The nation can breathe a sigh of relief! Congress has finally found something they’ll take action on. In the last few months, they have pointedly ignored the plight of the border states, held useless hearings on the Gulf of Mexico, and taken vacations while the average unemployed person roots around their couch cushions for enough change to buy a pack of Ramen. Contrary to public perception, it wasn’t incompetence or sloth that caused these things. It was simply a matter of priorities.
    In the midst of a maelstrom of problems, they’ve been hard at work, composing another massive legislative tome for us, all in the name of consumer protection. They’ve shaken off the fatigue and healed the wounds incurred in their battle to protect us against the evil health insurance companies, and now they’ve introduced a shining new example of benevolent big government by facing down the ravening hordes of investment-bank bean counters scheming to part us from our hard-earned money.
    With the lofty goal of saving America from the Wall Street cannibals, Congress is proud to introduce their latest masterpiece, the distinguished-sounding Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Thanks to the pioneering efforts of our beloved Senators from Maine, this sweeping legislation is only a Presidential signature away from becoming the law of the land.
    That’s right. Our fearless legislators have produced 2,300 brand new pages of dense financial legalese to protect us from bad banking practices. These are the same legislators who thought that taking out a huge loan that they can’t pay back would rescue us from a financial crisis that originated when people took out huge loans that they couldn’t pay back. They are also the same legislators who decided they couldn’t figure out what was in the health care bill until they passed it. It is this kind of Congressional logic that helps the average American sleep peacefully at night.
    There’s no question that our leaders spent an enormous amount of time, effort, and carbon dioxide-producing wood pulp to rescue us from another moustache-twisting devil in an Armani suit. Despite their zeal, they seem to have forgotten a few key details.
    The first is the premise that the people who were supposed to be watching the financial system failed to avert the crisis because they didn’t have enough rules, which is why they need an entirely new federal agency to enforce all the new rules that haven’t been written yet. Congress seems to have forgotten about the stalwart legions at the SEC, which was set up in the 1930s to enforce rules on banking. Perhaps the new Consumer Protection Agency will have better luck than the SEC, especially if they spend their time enforcing rules instead of mining the rich veins of internet pornography for most of the workday.
    The second detail that Congress overlooked in their haste to shield us from the nefarious villains on Wall Street was the ongoing financial aneurism at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. For a bill that is supposed to protect us from failing financial institutions, it’s a little strange that a mortgage company that lost $11.5 billion in the first three months of the year, and will require $145 billion in taxpayer money to stay afloat would escape the notice of people making up rules to protect us from this very thing. It’s either a very large living room, or a very well-camouflaged elephant that can escape the notice of eagle-eyed legislators like Barney Frank.
    The final detail that Congress seems to have overlooked is the fact that businesses run on money. This seems on its surface to be a mundane detail that people accept as a matter of course. However, if the banks, who have the money, are afraid to lend the money because of the uncertainty created by 2,300 pages of vaguely worded legislation, the jobless people Congress failed to assist will continue to be jobless, because businesses without money can’t expand.
    Reform, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is to put or change into an improved form or condition, or to amend or improve by change of form or removal of faults or abuses. Thousands of pages of legislation that do nothing but expand government and create uncertainty in the financial services industry is not reform. It’s making a bad sculpture worse by adding more of the same clay.
Michael LaReaux
Haynesville