Geithner Confident on Financial Overhaul Vote

U.S. NEWS ---online.wsj.com
APRIL 18, 2010, 11:49 A.M. ET
By JOSH MITCHELL
WASHINGTON — U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Sunday expressed confidence that Congress would approve a controversial financial-overhaul package, but a top Republican lawmaker's reiteration of GOP concerns underscored the hurdles that remain.
"I am very confident that we're going to have the votes for a strong package of financial reforms that'll bring derivative markets out of the dark, help protect the taxpayers from having to fund future bailouts and trying to make sure we're getting Americans some basic protection against fraud and abuse," Mr. Geithner said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
He said he believed that Democrats and Republicans agreed on broad principles of how to change the financial-regulatory system, adding he was "very confident" that some Republicans would eventually vote for a bill. But Mr. Geithner also acknowledged that the two parties disagreed over certain aspects of the current bill, and that more work lay ahead.
Republicans and Democrats have become locked in an increasingly bitter struggle over how to overhaul the country's financial regulations in the wake of the global financial crisis. The legislation, which could be headed to Senate floor for a vote in the next week, is designed to fix the financial regulatory system by both forestalling another financial debacle and better handling a crisis when it arrives.
The government's civil fraud charges against Goldman Sachs Group Inc. last week handed Democrats a powerful tool to press their case for stricter curbs on Wall Street's big banks. But senior Republicans are coalescing around a hard line of attack, warning that the White House-backed legislation would entrench, not end, government bailouts of Wall Street.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.), appearing on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday, said Republicans still had serious concerns about the current proposals and that lawmakers must start talks on a new bill that addresses those concerns.
"What we ought to do is get back to the table and have a bipartisan bill, which is what we don't have at the moment," Sen. McConnell said.
He said he believed that every senator supports overhauling financial regulation, but that the current legislation needed to be changed. He added that broad bipartisan support appeared to exist for overhauling the regulation of derivatives, complex financial instruments that played a role in the financial markets' meltdown.
"I think there's a broad agreement that there ought to be change," he added.
Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Blanche Lincoln (D., Ark.) on Friday unveiled a proposal to regulate the over-the-counter derivatives market. The legislation, which is expected to be folded into the broader overhaul measure, would give federal regulators broad new authority to require mandatory trading and clearing of standardized derivatives.