President Obama Signs Sweeping Financial Reform Bill

WASHINGTON, D.C. – President Obama signed into law Wednesday what has been called the most ambitious financial regulations overhaul in decades, pledging an end to the financial abuses of the past and seeking to protect consumers.

“Passing this bill was no easy task,” Obama said in his remarks to the audience gathered at Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center near the White House.  “To get there, we had to overcome the furious lobbying of an array of powerful interest groups and a partisan minority determined to block change.  So the members who are here today, both on the stage and in the audience, they have done a great service in devoting so much time and expertise to this effort, to looking out for the public interests and not the special interests.”

The bill’s passage is said to be a major legislative victory for the Obama, who had promised he would curb the type of Wall Street excesses behind the economic crisis in America and fix the regulatory system that failed prevent the economic downturn. According to reports, the House approved the bill in June and the Senate approved their version last week, following more than a year of back-and-forth maneuvers and counter-maneuvers over the shape of the new financial rules

Obama signed the new law in front of hundreds of supporters, among them Vice President Joe Biden, the bill’s chief sponsors, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.). Dodd and Frank chair the banking committees in their respective chambers, and the bill is named for them.

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act creates a new, independent consumer within the Federal Reserve to protect borrowers against abuses in mortgage, credit card and other types of lending. The bill gives new authority to the federal government to seize and wind down large, troubled financial firms to end the possibility that taxpayers would have to pay to bail out those firms, and sets up a council of federal regulators to identify and assess threats to the financial system.

Author: Kimberly Davis

Kimberly Davis has been a writer and editor at various newspaper and magazine publications for nearly 15 years. She has worked at Ebony, the Greenville (S.C.) News, the Anderson (S.C.) Independent, and as a freelance writer and editorial consultant for regional and national magazines, such as People, Diverse: Issues in Higher Education, Upscale and Denver. Kimberly received her master’s degree in journalism and mass communication from the University of Georgia, and her B.S. in journalism from Northwestern University. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in journalism studies at the University of Maryland.