Labor & Employment Law

Wall Street Reform a First Step to Taking Back America

By James Parks

Even though Congress is poised to pass the strongest Wall Street reform in recent history, the current bill is just the beginning of the broad reforms we need to take back the country from the Big Banks, a panel of experts said today at the America’s Future Now! conference in Washington, D.C.

The conference is sponsored by the Campaign for America’s Future (CAF).  (If you haven’t signed up and are in the Washington, D.C., area, up you can register onsite at the Omni Shoreham Hotel [2500 Calvert Street, N.W.]. Click here for more information.)

For the first time in decades, Main Street has a chance to rein in the Big Banks, said Heather Booth, director of Americans for Financial Reform.

The reform legislation is a first step to making Wall Street pay to help create the 11 million jobs it destroyed when it wrecked the American economy.  The U.S. House and Senate each passed versions of the legislation, which now must be reconciled by a congressional conference committee. The final bill must provide real independent consumer protection, rein in the risky casino practices of some investment banks and stop future bailouts by taxpayers, Booth said.

People are angry and ready to move their money and their votes as they watch their jobs and their life’s work disappear, their state and local budgets dwindle and their homes being foreclosed, Gerald Taylor of the Industrial Areas Foundation Southeast said.. He called for progressives to mobilize and organize ordinary homeowners, farmers and seniors facing the loss of pensions.

Economist Robert Johnson of the Roosevelt Institute said progressives must hold public officials accountable and “get up under their skin” so they fight for the working people and not the Big Banks.

The fight against Wall Street is really about who matters in this country and whose voice will be heard, Booth said. George Goehl of National People’s Action and Taylor said the Wall Street crisis presents the best opportunity in years for progressives to build a truly national movement to change our economy. They called for a coalition of labor, environmentalists, activists and grassroots people to create change.

As Taylor said:

We need to go to the highways and byways of our country and begin a discussion with people about the economy.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on June 07, 2010 (boomark / email).