Thursday, July 15, 2010

Immigration Now?

The corner of Wall Street and Broadway, showin...Image via Wikipedia
I blogged a while back suggesting immigration overhaul has to be saved for 2011, (Save Immigration For 2011) but that was when I was thinking Wall Street reform is going to take much of this year. It has taken much less time than I thought it would.

Now it has become wise to tackle immigration with the same swiftness. Get it done and over with. Immigration is an issue that can only be tackled at the federal level. If you let the states take a crack at it one after the other, you end up with the monkey business like in Arizona.

Obama's spectacular success with health care reform is what made swift work on Wall Street reform possible.

Now he gets to work the same magic on immigration. This has been the president's intent from the outset. He has wanted to do immigration overhaul this year. I stand with him now. His leadership on health care reform and Wall Street reform has convinced me he has the right schedule in mind for immigration.

Tackling immigration right away is also the right thing to do politically for the elections due in November. It will prevent some of the president's opponents from trying to cash on the irrational fears of some of his constituents.

New York Times: Financial Oversight Bill Signals Shift on Deregulation
.... a renewed mistrust of financial markets after decades .... cleared the Senate by a vote of 60 to 39, largely along party lines, after weeks of wrangling that allowed Democrats to pick up the three Republican votes to ensure passage ..... the culmination of nearly two years of fierce lobbying and intense debate ...... a catalog of repairs and additions to the rusted infrastructure of a regulatory system that has failed to keep pace with the expanding scope and complexity of modern finance. ...... a bill that reasserts the importance of federal supervision of financial transactions. ...... “The financial industry is central to our nation’s ability to grow, to prosper, to compete and to innovate. This reform will foster that innovation, not hamper it,” Mr. Obama said Thursday. “Unless your business model depends on cutting corners or bilking your customers, you have nothing to fear.” ..... Despite public anger at Wall Street, the vast majority of Republicans opposed the bill with loud confidence, betting ahead of hotly contested midterm elections that the public dislikes government even more. .......subjecting a wider range of financial companies to government oversight, and imposing regulation for the first time on “black markets” like the enormous trade in credit derivatives. ....... new powers to constrain and even dismantle troubled companies. ...... a simplified disclosure form for mortgage loans. ...... “You have to have rules that allow you to continue to get the benefit of the innovation but curtail abuses.” ...... The administration’s approach, which prevailed, instead is focused on giving existing regulators additional powers in the hope that they will produce better results. ........ “We can’t legislate wisdom or passion. We can’t legislate competency. All we can do is create the structures and hope that good people will be appointed who will attract other good people,” Mr. Dodd said.
(Via Reshma Saujani)
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