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we re back. that was president obama saturday night joking about something that appears to be all too true. the senate is moving full steam ahead on wall street reform and some democrats want to get tougher on biggest banks. ted kaufman is vice president biden s successor in the senate and he sits on the government affairs committee. thank you, senator kaufman. first time you ve been on the show. i wonder whether you have a special advantage coming into this senate without the need to fund raise. the right word is sickening parts of your wonderful role in life is that you don t have to play and sit on your car in the plaza making phone calls during roll calls. you don t have to do that with your colleagues. has that given you an edge against these wall street character? i think it has given an edge. ....
Mcconnell, because overwhelmingly the public thinks, wait a second. you re not even going to debate on an issue? and it s so clear they re protecting wall street, that s their ben factor. the insurance companies, keith, were their benefactor on the health care bill, and wall street is their principal benefactor on wall street reform, the banks. this is going to blow up in their face unless they sort of decide, at least a few of them, to come over to our side and give us a chance to debate it. senator, isn t this the definition of the cutting off your nose to spite your face bit from the republican point of view? aren t a lot of the amendments on the floor designed to do things republicans say they want anyway? mccain wants glass-steagall back, and what about your own amendment is this. my own amendment with senator kaufman and others, saying too big to fail is too big, that these banks just can t be that big, these five or six huge banks. let me give you one statistic about that. 1 ....
Democrats numbers pretty bad. the polls aren t very good. doesn t look like a great year for democrats. could be okay in the end, but i think this is one too far for mcconnell, because overwhelmingly the public thinks, wait a second. you re not even going to debate on an issue? and it s so clear they re protecting wall street, that s their ben factor. their benefactor. the insurance companies, keith, were their benefactor on the health care bill, and wall street is their principal benefactor on wall street reform, the banks. this is going to blow up in their faces, unless they sort of decide, at least a few of them, to come over to our side and give us a chance to debate it. senator, isn t this the definition of the cutting off your nose to spite your face bit from the republican point of view? aren t a lot of the amendments on the floor designed to do things republicans say they want anyway? mccain wants glass-steagall back, and what about your own amendment? my own amendment wit ....
With the power that we have to say negotiate so that we at least have a bipartisan beginning rather than another completely partisan bill like we saw on health care. as you know, there are bipartisan negotiations going on right now between senators dodd and shelby. for you, what would have to change before you would vote for this bill? well, first of all, we would have to make sure that too big to fail is gone away, that taxpayer bailouts will never happen again. and this bill does not satisfy the republicans that it will end the advantage that big financial institutions have over our community banks. number two. would you support that i m sorry. let me stop you right there because i m curious. would you support a measure offered by senator kaufman that would actually set hard limits on how big banks could get in. no, because i want our banks to be able to compete in the ....
We haven t mentioned that yet. and also to make sure we don t have another crisis like this again in five or ten years. representative miller, appreciate your time and efforts to bring back fairness in this country. eliot spitzer sits with us. what s the greatest barrier for any white knight from either side of the aisle that would like to add real reform to this legislation. right now the third route which is the one we want to pursue is the desired route. if republicans broke ranks, what would be pushed through would be an inadequate bill. in a bizarre way we want to force a debate because day by day month by month the bill has been getting better because we ve seen bills such as congressman miller and senator kaufman s coming forward with a lot of public support. 12-10 they lost against the breakup bill in senate committee. ten votes for it. this is getting very close to a tipping point where the public ....