I'm still waiting for him to -start- fighting. I'd love to see him start doing any of the things he said he'd do...you know, all those things that made me ignore my innate cynicism and vote for him.

That said, the Republicans -are- truly stomach-turning. The last Republican I could bear was Chuck Nagle...who was really a Republican only in name.

^

i'm so fucking confused.

What I've always wondered about is really how many of these so called independents are really conscientiously impartial and making impartial decisions with fair consideration for both the parties' policies, and how many are simply swing voters, ready to be swayed by the next fear campaign or dumbed down populist argument.

Clearly with health care he's effectively lost the latter and made the prior ambivalent, with this move he has the chance to snap up both. Then again, everything is about posturing. Financial firms make up a highly disproportionate part of the economy, and both their lobbyists and Fox News will make every effort to vilify the taxes to be imposed on bank liabilities, whereas I'm sure any discussion on the proprietary trading ban for deposit banks will vanish in an instant.

Also the fact is, it is true that taxing financial firms will likely see the costs passed down in the form of higher and tighter lending rates. If they manage to tie that together with unemployment especially then it may be very damaging.

On the other hand, there's certainly reason to argue that this tax will fund any future financial calamities and will downsize the risk and cost of potential moral hazard in the future. While deleveraging banks and forcing them to keep larger capital requirements is also an option, only a financially crippling requirement would have prevented banks from getting in trouble in this financial crisis, so in that sense a fund creates an added level of risk prevention.

Repeat a slogan enough times and it loses its meaning. Then you can do the opposite of what you said and nobody is supposed to notice.

"Change we can believe in" becomes "indefinite detention."