Bank reform faces cosmetic changes, delay
No bank bill til mid-July: analysts
US Sen. Scott Brown, R-Mass., can rightfully claim to have killed the planned $19 billion bank tax that was supposed to fund the nearly-done bank reform law; but congressional negotiators merely agreed to increase the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. tax on large banks to make up the difference. Negotiators also killed the unpopular Bush-era TARP bank subsidy program; but "this has little practical impact" since the remaining billions weren't getting spent anyway, notes FBR Capital Markets analyst Edward Mills in a report to clients.
The House didn't vote on the final bill Tuesday as expected, and it's not likely to vote until the Senate has 60 votes lined up for final passage, and that's going to take awhile, maybe til mid-July, Mills adds. The earlier Independence Day deadline "now appears unlikely if not impossible," Blank Rome bank lobbyists told their clients in a report.