March 29, 2024

#BailoutCaucus: 11 Senate Democrats Joining GOP to Dismantle Wall Street Regulations


Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) listens to testimony from Secretary of Treasury Steve Mnuchin during a Senate Finance Committee hearing concerning fiscal year 2018 budget proposals for the Department of Treasury and tax reform, on Capitol Hill, May 25, 2017 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)


“This breakaway #BailoutCaucus may think their support of this bill will fly under the radar—only noticed by bank executives and lobbyists giving campaign contributions. They are wrong.”


By Jake Johnson / 01.27.2018


A group of nearly a dozen Senate Democrats is teaming up with President Donald Trump and the GOP in an aggressive push to gut Wall Street regulations, and thanks to a new campaign launched on Friday by the anti-corruption organization Rootstrikers, this group has a name: “The Bailout Caucus.”

In total, 11 Democratic senators and Angus King (I-Maine) are joining hands with Republicans to push through GOP-crafted legislation (S.2155) that progressive Democrats and Wall Street critics say will undermine crucial post-financial crisis regulations, roll back consumer protectionsand open the door to another crash.

In an email on Friday, Rootstrikers noted that it is working alongside several other advocacy groups to pressure Democrats to “drop their support of the bill,” which is expected to hit the Senate floor for a vote as early as next month.

Refusal to do so would be “a shocking betrayal of the constituents who put them into office,” Rootstrikers campaign director Kurt Walters concluded in a statement. “This breakaway #BailoutCaucus may think their support of this bill will fly under the radar—only noticed by bank executives and lobbyists giving campaign contributions. They are wrong.”

As part of its pressure campaign, Rootstrikers began circulating a petition urging constituents of King and the 11 Democratic senators to demand that they oppose a bill that, if passed, would “give the green light to Trump’s team of deregulators to eviscerate the other rules on Wall Street.”

Echoing the concerns of activist groups, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) has been a vocal critic of Crapo’s legislation and her Democratic colleagues who have decided to co-sponsor it.

“This bill increases the risk of another taxpayer bailout, and I will continue to challenge supporters of this bill—from both parties—to explain why they stand on the side of big banks instead of working families,” Warren said in an interview earlier this month.


Originally published by Common Dreams under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 license.