From The Foundry

    Live Blog: Obama’s Goals v. Congressional Priorities

    Posted by David John | 24 Feb

    On financial issues, the president’s speech was a mixture of worthy goals and worrying generalities.

    For instance, he announced that “First, we are creating a new lending fund that represents the largest effort ever to help provide auto loans, college loans, and small business loans to the consumers and entrepreneurs who keep this economy running.”

    Is this some new federal lending fund that will compete with banks and other financial institutions? If so, the new fund would appear to weaken the very financial institutions that he wants to strengthen.

    However, then he went on to list restrictions that would make it much harder to accomplish his goals, and given the statements of the president’s allies in congress, may result in attempts to micro-manage a crucial part of the economy.

    Finally, he asked congress “to move quickly on legislation that will finally reform our outdated regulatory system. It is time to put in place tough, new common-sense rules of the road so that our financial market rewards drive and innovation, and punishes short-cuts and abuse.”

    This is yet another worthy goal, especially given the actions of many in bank management, but again the statements of his allies in the House and Senate banking committees make one wonder if this won’t end up being yet more attempts to direct lending to specific groups regardless of their credit worthiness, while loading banks down with picky requirements that stifle innovation. The details of his proposal will be essential reading – as will the responses of the two banking committee heads.

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