>>>Contrary to the notion held so dear by some, the economy seems to do a lot better under Democratic presidents than Republican ones.
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>>The economy does a lot better under divided government than single party control.
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>That may be true as well.
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>I'm not sure what an undivided government would be in our system, though. The Democrats have a heavy majority in both houses of Congress and the Republicans are still able to thwart most of their initiatives. (While trying to stop every single one of them). All you need is 41 votes in the Senate.

That's a fun but inaccurate little quip. The Republicans have been trying to have a say in nearly every major piece of legislation which has come forth. Health care, cap-n-tax, financial, etc. Each had strong "bipartisan" negotiations which eventually broke down because the committee leaders (Democrats) decided to pull away from the Republican ideas and push their version of the legislation. At that point the Republicans became unified in opposition. Hey, better late than never. ;)

>It surprises me some, although it probably shouldn't, that they are trying to block reform of the financial system.

Again, fun but inaccurate. The original Senators putting together the legislation were Shelby(R) and Dodd(D). Negotiations broke down in February when the two could not compromise and Dodd decided to push forth with the Democrat version. Thus began the hard fight in the Senate to get Republican sponsored amendments into the Democrat bill.

The bill has now passed the Senate with assurances made to Brown, Collins and Snowe that their concerns will be addressed either during the reconciliation process with the House bill or through follow-up legislation. To me the bill is laughable because it completely ignores reforming Fannie/Freddie. It imposes new regulations on private financial institutions and hedge funds while ignoring the bull that's been rampaging through the china shop.

>Surely they have not developed total amnesia about what happened two years ago, so I am attributing it to pure orneriness in an election year. (And not saying the Democrats would be any different if the roles were reversed).

Let's not pretend that this bill is some panacea of virtuous reform which will prevent events like 2 years ago. As I said, this does nothing to address Fannie/Freddie.