GOP Senator Bob Corker was emphatic on Wednesday that Republicans
missed a big opportunity to influence what is perhaps the most
ambitious financial reform bill to pass through the Senate since the
Great Depression.

Republicans declined to offer any amendments during Monday's scheduled
mark-up of the bill, choosing instead to vote against sending the
legislation to the Senate floor strictly along party lines. It passed
out of the Senate Banking Committee with 13 Democrats in favor and 10
Republicans opposed.

Failing to reach a bipartisan deal in committee was "a very large
strategic mistake," the Tennessee senator told reporters after his
speech before a U.S. Chamber of Commerce summit in Washington.
Declining to offer amendments, and then passing the bill out of
committee along party lines, "talks about how dysfunctional, how
dysfunctional we have been as a committee and the Senate has been in
addressing this issue," Corker said in reference to financial reform.

Prior to Monday's meeting, Corker told the Huffington Post that,
"You're probably going to witness one of the most dysfunctional
committee meetings in Senate history."

On Wednesday, his tone remained the same.

"We had an opportunity to pass out a bill out of our committee in a
bipartisan way, and then stand on the Senate floor and hold hands and
say that we would keep amendments that were unnecessary and improper
from coming onto this bill," Corker said. "Instead of that, it's been
decided that we are going to try to negotiate now ...

"I think it's going to be far more difficult now that this has passed
out of committee ... I think we have made a very, very large mistake,
and I regret that."

Banking committee Chairman Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) told HuffPost
that "what [Corker] said was his Republican leadership abandoned him."

"They decided they wanted to say 'No' again," Dodd said. "So we went
ahead ... If you don't even want to offer yours, I couldn't -- if
anyone wanted to offer amendments, I would have been there. They made
a decision not to. That was their call. Not mine. And listen, I
understand why they wanted to do it."

Corker blamed Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the committee, for
failing to reach a compromise on legislation with Dodd last year,
reports Marke****ch.

"It would have been better had Senator Shelby negotiated a bipartisan
bill last September, October or November," Corker said. "We could have
had a bipartisan bill that passed." [It should be noted that Dodd
didn't begin working with Shelby until November]

Part of Corker's regret going forward stems from the difficulty that
Republicans may have in staying unified.

"It's going to be very, very difficult -- very difficult -- to get 41
members to hold, especially, especially if many of the provisions in
this bill address concerns that everyday people on Main Street have,"
said Corker. "That's why I thought it was so important to leave that
committee -- maybe lose three Republicans, lose three Democrats -- but
to end up with a middle-of-the-road bill that we can all hold hands
and fight off amendments."

After talks between Dodd and the top Republican on the committee,
Richard Shelby of Alabama, hit an impasse, Dodd reached out to Corker.
The two began negotiating on the bill, but again Dodd and a Republican
failed to reach agreement.

The sticking point has been the proposed consumer financial protection
agency, a dedicated entity to be charged with protecting borrowers
from abusive lenders. Progressive Democrats want an independent agency
to look after consumers; Republicans -- and some bank-friendly
Democrats -- want the new unit to either be a part of a bank
regulator, subject to the whims of a bank regulator, or simply not be
formed at all. Corker, like Shelby, opposes an independent agency.
Corker has called it a "nonstarter."

The political problem, Corker said, is that the fight to fix the
nation's broken financial system is fundamentally different from the
fight to reform health care or health insurance.

"You don't pull the game book out for health care -- I'm sorry -- and
apply that to financial reform. And anybody who's thought that -- and
unfortunately I think there have been people who've thought that --
are way mistaken. I'm sorry -- there's a whole different dynamic
around financial reform," Corker said. "That's why I've worked so hard
and, you know, almost begged Chairman Dodd ... to please let's do this
in a bipartisan way."

Republicans had their chance, but squandered it, he said. Asked about
the deal apparently reached over the weekend to not offer any
amendments, Corker said: "To be candid, by the time this weekend came,
the real issue was when will the negotiations end."

"The leverage that existed up until Monday night is gone, and I think
it's far more difficult to get us where we need to go as a country,
and I regret that," he added.

But last week, the president and CEO of the American Bankers
Association, Ed Yingling, had a different perspective, arguing that
the more time passes, the more emboldened Republicans can be.

"From the Republicans' point of view every week that passes is, say
Senator Shelby, more leverage. And a lot of what this is about is
leverage to get your best deal," Yingling told a crowd of bankers at
an ABA summit. "So it's in the interest of the Republicans to slow
things down because that gives them more leverage to negotiate."

Asked if the decision not to debate the bill Monday was "the
[Republican] leadership's initiative ... or Senator Shelby's," Corker
replied:

"You know, for some reason ... I don't know, you can probe into this
yourself, there hasn't been a desire to get us in a bipartisan place,
and I find that...let me say this: All I can say is negotiations
between Senator Shelby and Senator Dodd just never worked. They never
went anywhere. I don't know what the reason was."

But for now, Corker said he'll go along with the Republican
leadership.

"I'm going to fold in behind Senator Shelby and continue to work in an
appropriate, positive way, and I hope we're going to get there,"
Corker said. "I'm not giving up. I'm just saying that when a bill
leaves a committee like it left this week, without bipartisan support,
and it goes to the floor in a dynamic like we have right now, where
the White House is very emboldened, I think that creates lots of
issues."


The Naughtzi Party.