Sen. Chuck Schumer, the third-ranking Senate Democrat and a member of the Senate Banking Committee, has released a statement on the latest compromise proposal from Chair Chris Dodd:U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) released the following statement Tuesday regarding reports that Senate negotiators are nearing a bipartisan deal on a financial services reform proposal that would house a consumer watchdog agency within the Federal Reserve: “Chairman Dodd is to be commended for working so diligently to come up with a bipartisan compromise on financial services reform, which demands urgent attention. But in my 20 years of trying to get the Federal Reserve to properly protect consumers, it has been an uphill, and very often unsuccessful, battle. I am very leery of any consumer regulator being placed inside the Fed.” --Senator Charles E. Schumer
Other Democrats have not responded so definitively to reports of the proposal. Schumer is the first Democrat on the committee to raise concerns over Dodd's efforts to negotiate a compromise bill with Republican Bob Corker, demonstrating worries that gaining GOP votes may make the underlying legislation ineffective at best. This will cheer the progressive reformers who have criticized the direction of the negotiations.
-- Tim Fernholz
