Good news #17: Spending bill, good compromise

From Elizabeth Warren:

"With a must-pass spending bill on the table, the Wall Street banks came at us in full force – but we fought them back!  Yesterday, Congress passed another spending bill without a single provision to materially weaken the rules on Wall Street. No gutting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. No tying the hands of the cops who police the big banks. No delay of a new conflict-of-interest rule for retirement advisers.

"And we did it while permanently expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit to keep more than 50 million Americans – including 25 million children – from seeing sharp cuts in their income, and preventing many of them from falling into poverty. That’s an enormous victory for opportunity in America.  (And we got an extra $2 billion for NIH – a down payment on a healthier future.)

"Don’t get me wrong – this budget deal was a compromise, and it’s got some really nasty stuff in it. I strongly oppose lifting the ban on exporting crude oil. I’m deeply concerned that the cybersecurity language threatens key privacy protections for Americans. And I gag when I think about the billions of dollars in tax breaks going to giant corporations.

"But I’m a realist: With a Republican-controlled Senate, a Republican-controlled House, and an army of Wall Street lobbyists spending zillions of dollars to target Dodd-Frank and the Consumer Agency, stopping these guys from rolling back financial reform is a big deal. . . .

"Sure, this isn’t over. The Wall Street banks will be back, and they will swing a lot of weight. And now we’ve got more work to do on climate change, privacy, and corporate taxes. But when naysayers claim that it’s impossible to change Washington and that we can’t beat powerful lobbyists, remember what you accomplished this week. We’ve proven that when we stand up and fight for America’s values, we can win."

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Brava! to Elizabeth Warren and other liberals in congress who were able to get this pretty-good bipartisan, compromise spending bill through a Republican-controlled congress.  President Obama is reportedly satisfied and will sign it -- so that we won't be faced with shutting down the government again until next fall.

I also want to say that Paul Ryan seems to have brought in a little more cooperative atmosphere and some genuine bipartisanship.

Ralph