WASHINGTON (AP) — Congressional Republicans are greeting the one-year anniversary of President Barack Obama’s financial overhaul law by trying to weaken it, nibble by nibble.

Wary of attempting to dismantle the entire statute and being portrayed as Wall Street’s allies — banks are among the nation’s most unpopular institutions — GOP lawmakers are attacking corners of it. They can’t prevail because they don’t control the White House or Senate, but they may be able to force some compromises on agency budgets, pressure regulators and influence some of Obama’s nominations.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) — Amid fears the United States risks default if lawmakers don’t raise the debt ceiling on time, some are suggesting President Obama could save the day by big-footing Congress.

How? By invoking the Constitution and directing Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to keep borrowing even if it means going past the statutory borrowing limit.

Really? They say default — and by extension, the debt limit — violates the 14th Amendment.

The amendment states: “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.”

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate rejected on Wednesday a measure to delay a cap on what banks can charge merchants when a debit card is used.

The vote was a major defeat for the banking industry, which stands to lose billions of dollars when the cap goes into effect later this year.
Banks of all sizes and retailers have been engaged in a fierce lobbying
fight over a provision in the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial oversight law
that requires the Federal Reserve to set a cap on the fees banks can
charge merchants when a customer uses a debit card.

Washington (CNN) — You might think the big banks would be too embarrassed to ask Congress for more special favors.

You think wrong.

The big banks are pressing Congress for a favor that will cost the average American household $230 a year. The bankers argue that the favor is needed to support small community banks. But since the lion’s share of the favor will be collected by just four banks, it might be cheaper to subsidize community banks with a check direct from the Treasury.

So what’s the favor?

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) — The Senate on Thursday afternoon passed the most sweeping set of changes to the financial regulatory system since the 1930s, sending the Wall Street reform bill to President Obama.

The Senate voted 60 to 39 to pass the reforms, ending more than a year-long effort to pass legislation in response to the 2008 financial crisis. Obama is expected to sign the bill into law next week.

WASHINGTON (CNNMoney.com) — Lawmakers are closing in on melding two different versions of Wall Street reform.

Late Thursday evening, lawmakers had just started to tackle one of the last and more controversial issues: Cracking down on the big banks’ investment activities and risky bets.

WASHINGTON – In a setback for the Obama administration, Senate Democrats failed to muster enough votes on Wednesday to end debate on the biggest overhaul of financial regulation since the 1930s, delaying a vote on passage.

Nearly a year after the federal rescue of the nation’s biggest banks, taxpayers have begun seeing profits from the hundreds of billions of dollars in aid that many critics thought might never be seen again.

The profits, collected from eight of the biggest banks that have fully repaid their obligations to the government, come to about $4 billion, or the equivalent of about 15 percent annually, according to calculations compiled for The New York Times.

WASHINGTON – The financial system has stabilized but needs new regulations to curtail behavior and practices that led to the meltdown that brought Wall Street to the brink of collapse, President Barack Obama said Wednesday night in a prime-time press conference at the White House.

The president specifically mentioned regulatory changes that would require shareholders to have nonbinding votes on executive compensation packages. He said the government could impose new fees on institutions that engage in what he called “far-out transactions.”

WASHINGTON – Sen. Daniel K. Inouye’s staff contacted federal regulators last fall to ask about the bailout application of an ailing Hawaii bank that he had helped to establish and where he has invested the bulk of his personal wealth.

The bank, Central Pacific Financial, was an unlikely candidate for a program designed by the Treasury Department to bolster healthy banks. The firm’s losses were depleting its capital reserves. Its primary regulator, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., already had decided that it didn’t meet the criteria for receiving a favorable recommendation and had forwarded the application to a council that reviewed marginal cases, according to agency documents.