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There Will Be "Hell to Pay" If Elizabeth Warren Does Not Have Real Power
President Obama has appointed Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren to help organize the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
The question now is whether Warren, a consumer champion, will wield the full power afforded that agency to crack down on Wall Street swindlers and speculators.
The answer to that question will tell us a lot about Obama's commitment with regard to critical economic fights, and about the ability of progressives to influence the administration.
Right now, the jury is still out.
Obama has been looking a little more focused and functional of late, talking about the need to invest in infrastructure projects to create jobs and rejecting Republican calls for the extension of George W. Bush's tax cuts for the rich.
Yet, for those who thought Obama was starting to "get" that America wants a president who will stand up to the economic royalists and do the right thing, his failure to appoint Warren to head the bureau is unsettling.
Obama has named the hero of reformers – and the one person anywhere near the upper echelons of this administration that Wall Street fears -- to an advisory post where she will report to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Congress placed the bureau's powers within the Treasury Department until such time as a permanent director is appointed and confirmed by the Senate to a five-year term. But Geithner has never been seen as an advocate for the agency. And, despite some complimentary public statements regarding Warren by the treasury secretary, it has been broadly suggested that he has been a behind-the-scenes opponent of her appointment to head the bureau.
Warren will also report to Obama—as a presidential assistant—and White House aides say that she will play a significant role in helping to create the consumer agency that is supposed to make real the promises made in the vague financial regulatory overhaul legislation passed earlier this year. Perhaps that will be the case.
Certainly, groups such as MoveOn.org are trying to put the best spin on the decision.
Hailing Obama's decision as "Great News!" Move On says: "This is the boldest step Obama's taken so far to rein in the big Wall Street banks. And it's a major victory for grassroots progressives who rallied for Warren. The banks fought to keep her out of this job—and now that she has it, they'll do whatever they can to keep her from exercising her full authority. That's why we need to get the word out—to make sure she has the grassroots support she needs to aggressively police Wall Street."
Implicit in the last line of of the statement is a concern that Warren may ack the authority to aggressively police Wall Street.
I prefer the edgy response of Adam Greene, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, who noted that: "The White House is being coy about Warren's role... The fact is that Warren will functionally have the keys to the new bureau for it's opening months, giving her immense opportunity to craft it the right way -- and giving President Obama a brief honeymoon on this issue with progressives through the election. It's still completely on the table that she'd be given a permanent appointment, and if the Wall Street types in the White House tried to stab her in the back and give someone else that role, there'd be hell to pay with progressives. That would be a really stupid move right as the president gears up his own re-election."
Obviously, the high hope is that Warren is on track for the actual appointment that Oregon Senator Jeff Merkley and others are urging him to make.
"While this is good news for American families," the reform-minded senator says, "it is my hope that President Obama will nominate Warren to a permanent position to head up the CFPB. She is more than deserving of the job and the Senate should have the opportunity to confirm one of the nation's strongest consumer advocates. The CFPB has been tasked by Congress with reining in the abuses by payday loan firms, credit card companies and predatory mortgage lenders that have stripped families of their hard-earned wealth and were a key cause of the recent financial crisis and recession. Clearly, the new bureau has a big job to do, and Elizabeth Warren is the right person to do it."
Unfortunately, the right person will not be doing it for awhile. As such, Obama is avoiding a fight that he should be waging.
By failing to formally install Warren in the position that economists and activists say she is uniquely prepared to fill, Obama is missing one of the most important opportunities of his presidency.
Warren should not be reporting to Geithner, whose subservience to Wall Street has done severe damage to the administration's ability not just to the correct the course of the economy but to crystallize financial issues that continue to play an essential role in our politics.
Indeed, if Obama were serious about tipping the balance away from Wall Street and toward Main Street, he would replace Geithner with Warren.
That's too much to ask of this administration.
But it should not be too much to ask that Warren be given the job she conceived and campaigned to create.
The president could have appointed Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and dared the Senate to reject a woman who has become the face of the fight to hold big banks, credit card companies and speculators to account. If Republicans threatened to block her appointment, they would have clarified the question of which party is working for Wall Street and which party is on the side of Main Street.
Or, if he really feared a filibuster would have prevented Warren from getting to the vital work of creating a muscular consumer protection agency, Obama could have made a recess appointment and put her in the position immediately. His critics would surely have screamed about Obama moving too aggressively to, um, protect consumers from being ripped off by Wall Street profiteers—a complaint that the president and his party would have been wise to invite.
Progressives campaigned for a recess appointment, arguing that such a move could have helped to close the enthusiasm gap that Democrats fear will make it hard to get base voters to the polls this fall. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee had even highlighted the differences between Warren and Geithner, arguing in petition language that: "Elizabeth Warren has proven that she is willing to stand up to Wall Street on behalf of consumers and is the logical choice to lead the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Tim Geithner is a longtime Wall Street insider, and if he's recommending against Elizabeth Warren that's all the more reason to appoint her."
Instead, by making Warren an "assistant," Obama runs away from the fight—and gives up another chance to clarify the economic battle lines not just of the fall campaign but of his presidency.
Progressives should be concerned, for political and policy reasons.
And they should keep the pressure on the administration to make real the promise of reform by formally appointing Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
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88 Comments so far
Show AllFor some strange reason, I no longer hear what President Zero has to say! Though I didn't vote for either of the procorporate candidates, I use to listen to what they would say,... no more! I'll be voting for social democrats this November!
The fact that Warren will report to Geithner AND Obama confirms that she will be constrained to assure that Wall Street continues business as usual.
Correct! and pretty odvious. Although according to the Wall. St rags the banksters and traitors (not a misspelling) a defecicating themselves with even this weak appointment. But like Gietner Obummer is also a creature of Wall. St(owned and operated) so really we shouldn't expect much.
What about Warren is she serious? report to Geitner? I'd tell Obomber what to do with his two-bit sham appointment. Maybe she needs a job realbad like the rest of us?
I don't know, but based on what I saw (no change in the dow numbers all day) I'd say the street ain't really concerned either, with the news.
>^^<
Precisely my take on it Ray. The Obama 'two step' which was looking for a backdoor way to dangle Warren for the progressive base at the same time giving her no real power except as sanctioned by Geithner (the CEO's boy), thus keeping her under the thumb of corporate hegemony. My guess is Warren will resign once she realizes this is more lip stick on the pig.
The Barakus Obombus' "two stop" is just a big fraud dangling this bone as it were before the progressive base, which the base will see through come November and let the "Democrats" take a big whipping, and then let Obombus take a bigger whipping from Colin Powell come 2012 It just goes to show you can't BS all the people all the time. Abraham Lincoln put it a bit differently, but the point's still valid. As Dandy Don Meridith would say at an NFL game "The party's over. . ."
AD
That's why Jessie Jackson was crying at the installation of Obomber, he said all along Obama was no-good and that we'd all pay if he was elected. I don't think he understood by half, the economy collapasing, jobs evaporating overseas. No one sane 3yrs ago would have thought it could get this bad this fast.
Of course Obama helped it crash as surly as the Officers of the Titanic conspired to hit that ice burg.
>^^<
That's why Jessie Jackson was crying at the installation of Obomber, he said all along Obama was no-good and that we'd all pay if he was elected. I don't think he understood by half, the economy collapasing, jobs evaporating overseas. No one sane 3yrs ago would have thought it could get this bad this fast.
Of course Obama helped it crash as surly as the Officers of the Titanic conspired to hit that ice burg.
>^^<
You got that right--I would vote for any one other than the Obomber.. Hope my arse.
You might ask the poor kids in Iraq and Afghanistan what they think of the Hope they are receiving from th end of a gun. And maybe from the thousands yet to be maimed, since he
refused to sign the land mind ban last year.
The only thing worse than a lier is a good lier/
I'm with you Z1; however, we need to establish a new Social Democratic Party.
The present Democratic Party seems to me to be extremely right-wing Republican, for the most part.
The others are - well, my thesaurus doesn't contain enough words to find even a ballpark description.
To what party do your social democrats belong?
Sorry to be so harsh and un-diplomatic John, but so what?
The level of analysis here appears to be a bit shallow.
Simply re-hashing and commenting on the official beltway blah blah does not constitute meaningful investigative journalism or analysis. This is ESPECIALLY true as we are faced with fundamental systemic crises on so many levels, the likes we have not seen in our lifetimes.
I still have not seen Chris Hedges latest article posted here on CD - most disappointing.
"I still have not seen Chris Hedges latest article posted here on CD - most disappointing." -- socialist
I agree -- and it's almost time for his next truthdig column -- this coming Monday morning.
Kay, please see the 5:23 pm comment I just posted to the Elizabeth Warren article in the "News" column!
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/09/17-3
And please see socialist's uncannily similar 4:58 pm comment at Matthew Rothschild's Feingold article!
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/09/17-14
_____________________________________
I'd appreciate your thoughts on our comments; just try to reply somewhere "conspicuous".
I don't know about you, but on days like this (the last weekday of "Pledge Week") when CD editors jam-pack the articles page, it's tough to keep one's bearings! ;)
Thanks, Obedient Servant -- I'm off to the columns!
And, yes, I agree with your final statement in your post!
There will be no "hell to pay" folks. It's all business as usual. The only hell to be paid will fall on the middle-class. It will come in the form of more Congressional approved H1B visas, more outsourced jobs, more foreclosures, less health care, more prison beds, and less social security and veteran's benefits. The middle-class is no longer needed to build America. The country was taken over long ago by corporate and military interests and turned into an empire.The middle-class will be replaced by the mercenary-class which will defend the empire at a cheaper cost. Or so they think.
Hoa binh
gnken
Im glad to see Elizabeth Warren at least put in a position that after the Election hopefully she will be appointed to head the CFPB. I think Obama wanted to keep the bi partisan fighting to a minimum until after the election. We shall see. With what the President has been fighting since the day he took office I think those of us that voted for him should at least appreciate what he has accomplished so far. It seems like it is not alot, but he still Governing.
omg.....
"... what he has accomplished so far. It seems like it is not alot ..."
I'll say.
This is a good article; John Nichols lays it out quite well.
"Warren should not be reporting to Geithner, whose subservience to Wall Street has done severe damage to the administration's ability not just to the correct the course of the economy but to crystallize financial issues that continue to play an essential role in our politics."
"Indeed, if Obama were serious about tipping the balance away from Wall Street and toward Main Street, he would replace Geithner with Warren."
"That's too much to ask of this administration."
"But it should not be too much to ask that Warren be given the job she conceived and campaigned to create."
Well said.
"Indeed, if Obama were serious about tipping the balance away from Wall Street and toward Main Street, he would replace Geithner with Warren."
Not going to happen. This is just a temporary sop for the left to help the dems get past the election. After the election, she will be sent packing back to Harvard and the Geithner/Summers twins will get someone approved by Goldman Sachs to head the agency.
so many words...
pressure the administration?
right...
I think it pertains to pressure washed money pressed into presidential palms and pockets by the pallet.
Elizabeth Warren has shown her true colors as just another "going along to get along" Obamabot.
If she truly believed in the mission she has been crowing about for several years now she would have told Obama, "Thanks, but no thanks."
When she accepted this current position she knew she would be muzzled by Geithner, Obama and "The Power Elite".
Shame on Elizabeth Warren.
Just another sell-out like Kucinich.
They talk the talk but will not walk the walk.
Have psychological testing done before election day.
"Have psychological testing done before election day."
Yeah, if you're going in with intentions of voting for a democrat.
Face it, the woman has caved. On the bright side, she at least didn't create a massacre by throwing an entire voter base under the bus like you-know-who did. What was the little weasels name....Kucinich?
moonpie,
Bravo!
They did,, Obummer was just what our true leaders wanted in a figurehead.
>^^<
Malarkey.
The Consumer Protection Agency is Warren's baby. If the administration attempts to muzzle her, she'll be out of there and will not go quietly into the night.
Without the likes of Warren and Kucinich in the government, there would be no struggle or public awareness of the ultimate self-defeat of unregulated corporate capitalism. They are our representation, and dumping on them is not only ungrateful in the extreme, it's counterproductive of a progressive agenda for self-government.
With all respect, Abbywood, when you think about it, Warren may not be so much a sellout as she may have been roped into this position. And possibly by her own fan base. After all, it was the totally disenfranchised base of Obama's support that said, "Warren and NOBODY else!". Other names mentioned were almost universally castigated (and rightfully so) as compulsive bankster buttkissers. Face it. She's the only game in town. If she refuses the half-appointment offered, she puts herself in the unhappy position of being thought to have deserted "us". And god knows how the corporate media would have portrayed her. She's had a tough enough time with those goons already. Instead (and I hope I'm right) she'll take this half-a-loaf, and try to see how much she can get away with before Geithner starts "accusing" her of actually trying to help people survive the bankster bs. If every move she makes is obviousy pro little-guy, Geithner looks like the fool he is, and Obama might even start looking good to the ill-informed. If the WH suceeds in driving her out, and replaces her with the typical Wall St. hack, then Warren rides off on her white steed, and Obama & Co. will, incredibly, wonder what went wrong. And Warren won't have to say a word. It's Obama who'll have to do all the " 'splainin".
Oh, no! Hell to pay from The Nation-wad!!
What could that mean, pray tell? Perhaps a strategy meeting over kippers and Kopi Luwak at Katrina Vandenheuvel's penthouse, starring Robert Scheer?
Egad!
The comments to the news article "Obama Names Elizabeth Warren to Set Up New Consumer Body" (posted in the "News" column to the left) cover the territory.
Too bad there's not a way to readily connect comments across multiple articles on the same subject. I presume that CD admins would frown on copy/pasting them into each other wholesale.
This is Dawn Johnsen redux, except that Team Obama has evidently made the calculation that it is more politically circumspect to build the problematic Warren a nice new gilded cage instead of allowing her to sink over the horizon to extinction.
Be careful what you wish for. Your cross-connecting idea seems like something that could really mess things up and make it more complicated to navigate a web-site. I have no idea of the technicalities, but Common Dreams is fairly easy to get around the way it is. New and improved are not synonymous.
Michael F Luddite
RichM, I've been reading your comments for a long time now. It seems to me that YOU should be the one writing columns to be posted on Common Dreams, instead of several other people who do.
You are an exceedingly insightful man -- and consistently.
RichM, as so often happens, you beat me to the post. No, the jury is not out, and I agree fully with your well put comment.
Some think she shouldn't have accepted this post, but if she gets fed up as she surely will and does not go quietly into the night, that might be worth something. I'm sure the public would love her if they knew she existed, but since only a minority can name the members of the Supreme Court, I doubt she has much name recognition.
The silliest comment I read was the suggestion that she and Timmy have made up and are friends now.
I confess after reading all of John Nichols' last essay, I was unable to make myself finish this one. For some reason all the Obama apologists are beginning to sound alike to me.
When the people fear their government there is tyranny,
when the government fears the people there is liberty.
~ Thomas Jefferson
It may be about little more than craven greed on the part of the bankers. The politicians on the other hand have different concerns. In addition to the demands of their bosses on Wall St, politicians are living in constant fear that they will be the ones blamed (for being the ones at the "wheel") when the economy collapses. Don't let all the talk of the recovery on Wall St fool you. The balance sheets of the banks are all smoke and mirrors. There is a mountain of debt out there of every imaginable type, leaving few sectors of the economy able to service that death and contribute to economic growth. The banks may be growing, profitable, but they do not create real growth- they profit from debt.
The politicians know the economy is likely to fail, they just don't want it, "to happen on their watch." Sort of like a very complicated game of musical chairs, only in reverse. Of course politicians of both parties will attempt to use the economy as a reason to push certain policies that serve their particular constituents (the ones with money anyway, many of whom they share in common). But ultimately, every tool in their corporate sanctioned tool bag is being employed to try to get the economy to grow. It’s just not working.
We are now and have been for a long time an economy based on consumption not production. The American working class is tapped out. Between shrinking wages, crushing debt, inflation (that includes food and fuel), and rising un/underemployment- growth is just not possible. The developing world may make our stuff, but it can't afford to buy that stuff. Shrinking energy, mineral and natural resource bases inhibit growth and limit prosperity in developed and especially in developing economies. Third world workers can't afford to buy enough consumer goods to offset the decreases in American and European demand. China and India are trying feverishly to move toward consumption economies, but this takes time, markets have to adjust to rising wages/costs. In the meantime individual, corporate and government debt markets continue to metastisize.
What is needed are drastic reforms and adjustments in how the global economy functions that would entail massive economic dislocation and realignment. Revolutionary changes in the banking/debt economy and industrial capitalism are basically what is needed. It just won't happen. The ruling class will maintain the status quo at all costs, because the alternative is unknown and certainly less profitable.
So don’t expect much on this front.
Indeed this is empty bluster.
John Nichols et al at The Nation are always in support of the Democratic Party--no matter how frequently they shit on the American people.
The Nation are phony progressives seeking only to sell their rag and keep the DLC happy at election time.
The nation is dying of dysentery, and appointment of Warren to a lesser position is like placing a pitcher of fresh water just out of reach of the sick. Neither is immediate thirst satisfied nor are the causes and treatment of the illness even addressed. Or if you wish, skip that analogy and just say "crumbs", election year crumbs. We cannot survive on crumbs.
All the author has to say is 'maybe, might, maybe not, keep up the pressure'. We can see what very little our pressure has accomplished to date. Crumb-dispensers are more dangerous than out-and-out sociopaths because we tend to hope for more with the former and expect nothing from the later.
dus7,
Excellent post.
Chelsea
Narcissistic, myopic, blinkered, uninformed, beltway bullshit for which fool publishers at The Nation paid him money.
Elizabeth Warren has no obligation to be a pawn in any political combatant's empire game. Her reference is =the American public= who is being raped (no other term) by banks and other lenders. As a published expert on consumer law, particularly on loans and credit fraud, she envisioned a federal financial consumer protection bureau. She did not co-envision running it herself. She hates Washington and is not a politician. She is also =retirement age=.
Elizabeth Warren is deluded that the average American wants what SHE wants, i.e. to secure elimination of mathematical scams in credit, plus a one-page, simple contract with the lender.
By contrast- if appointed - what average Americans expect of Elizabeth Warren is for her to be Donna Corleone: a woman who makes sure that each and every financial industry CEO will wake up one morning in bed with the bleeding, severed head of his or some other race horse - - and a hog's head for Timothy Geithner.
And if she doesn't achieve that goal, then Liz was a sham from the start, and the public will not forgive her.
Elizabeth, this is a cesspool of unrealistic expectations and among the things at risk are your self confidence and self respect. You have painted yourself in a corner trying to make Barack and too many others happy. Your happiness comes first.
>She did not co-envision running it herself. She hates Washington and is not a politician. She is also =retirement age=.<
According to this, all she wants is a "SuperGrade" Federal Pension. This makes sense in fact, much more than that she would be expecting to do anything constructive under Geitners thumb as Obummer put her, for safetys sake (she can't rock the boat)
I understand selfishness and greed, The noise about Obams steping up to Wall.St made no sense at all. Thanks
>^^<
From Washington's Blog, April 2009:
Senior S&L Regulator Says Government Engaging in Massive Cover-Up of Economic Crisis: “The Entire Strategy Is to Keep People from Getting the Facts”
William K. Black was the senior regulator during the S&L crisis, and an Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri.
Black says that the government's entire strategy in dealing with the economic crisis is a massive cover-up:
...if we put honest people in, who didn't cause the problem, their first job would be to find the scope of the problem. And that would destroy the cover up....
Geithner is ... covering up. Just like Paulson did before him....
These are all people who have failed. Paulson failed, Geithner failed. They were all promoted because they failed....
Until you get the facts, it's harder to blow all this up. And, of course, the entire strategy is to keep people from getting the facts....
[Question] Are you saying that Timothy Geithner, the Secretary of the Treasury, and others in the administration, with the banks, are engaged in a cover up to keep us from knowing what went wrong?
[Black] Absolutely....
They're deliberately leaving in place the people that caused the problem, because they don't want the facts. And this is not new. The Reagan Administration's central priority, at all times, during the Savings and Loan crisis, was covering up the losses.
[Question] So, you're saying that people in power, political power, and financial power, act in concert when their own behinds are in the ringer, right?
That's right. And it's particularly a crisis that brings this out, because then the class of the banker says, "You've got to keep the information away from the public or everything will collapse."
-----------------------
*** I'm sure Obama and Geithner will give Elizabeth Warren unlimited authority to peer into all the dark corners of Wall Street blowing up all their careers, fortunes, legacies and sending them and all their cohorts to prison forever.
"By failing to formally install Warren in the position that economists and activists say she is uniquely prepared to fill, Obama is missing one of the most important opportunities of his presidency."
Nonsense. If he nominated Warren to be the director of the Commission, she would be tied up forever in the confirmation process, and would not be able to do any work setting up the thing.
In principle, she could set up the commission and then, if Obama really wants her, he can nominate her next year. She could still do the work of the Acting Director while going through the confirmation process.
The only unknown involves Obama's intentions. If he listens to Summers and Geithner, he will cave and nominate someone else, showing once again that he has no regard for the people who put him in office.
"The only unknown involves Obama's intentions.
No. The only unknown intention involves those of Elizabeth Warren and her Family, as she reviews her career past, takes account of her age, and decides what she wants for the future. More years spent in the cesspool of Washington DC? For what? She is NOT some pawn on America's political chessboard.
Will each American over age 17 please repeat this verity three times. Thank you.
What if this lady speaks up for how it should be done and is ignored?
What's to keep her from calling a press conference to inform the public?
What is Obama to do?? Fire her? Bad, bad PR and PR is the golden calf of every politician. She could die in a plane crash, but there are enough conspiracy theories now to make that a reckless move.
I don't believe in Obama's integrity anymore, but stupid he is not.
He will be sorry he did this.
This was a move solely to mollify progressives for the election, pure and simple. If he comes to regret this move then that will be good for the country -- tough luck on Obama.
Cutting down the nonsense in this article, the best revision to this article is as follows:
Elizabeth Warren will be given "power" but will have to report to Obama and his criminal gang so that she can be controlled. Therefore, there will be no hell to pay if Warren turns down the offer.
What if Lyndon Johnson had said, "We won't have the votes to get the Civil Rights Act passed."
With all the name calling of Obama's political philosophy, why hasn't anyone called him what he most resembles? A New England Conservative like Scott Brown, Susan Collins, and Olympia Snowe.
There's already HELL TO PAY ! Last year's gubernatorial election, the special election in MA, and lots of Democrats preparing to be flamed all thanks to Obama and this Congress selling out and you still think all is well with the party? Horse feathers !
post withdrawn
"And they should keep the pressure on the administration to make real the promise of reform by formally appointing Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau."
Really? What kind of "pressure". Is The Nation going to withhold next months freebie issues from the White House?
What is a MoveOn?