Big Banks Increase Lobbying Campaign to Fight Stiffer Regulatory Proposals: JP Morgan, Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley Lead Amped-Up Attack
Leaders of the nation's financial industry are turning up the heat on lawmakers to put the kibosh on some of the stiffest regulatory proposals pending in Congress — lobbying expenditures have leapt from 12 percent in 2008 to nearly 30 percent this year in an effort to quash financial-reform proposals such as a bank tax, limits on big bank size and curbs on lenders' flexibility in risky hedge funds and private equity funds. JP Morgan is the biggest lobbying spender, followed closely by Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley.
"I have never seen such a scrum of bank lobbyists as I have in the last year — and I've worked on quite a few bank issues over the years," said Ed Mierzwinski, a lobbyist for the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a coalition of state consumer organizations." It seems like everybody is out of work except for bank lobbyists," the LA Times reports.
"This is a watershed moment," said Scott Talbott, a lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable, which represents about 100 of the largest financial firms. "The industry will be changed forever after this year." Bank lobbyists, however, are trying to limit just how much the industry has to change. They are fighting some provisions in the Obama Administration's broad industry-overhaul proposal, especially a plan to create a consumer protection agency to oversee financial services, reports Times writer Nathaniel Popper.
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