The Omnibus Budget Bill

Needless to say, I'm not happy.  I'm not terribly concerned about the enormous increases in permissible contributions to party committees, etc., because the system already is owned by the fat cats.  How much difference can the extra millions make?

The weakening of Dodd-Frank ("the Citigroup amendment"), on the other hand, concerns me a lot.  Inevitably, somewhere down the road, we'll end up bailing out banks gone wild via unsafe, speculative derivatives trading.

.  .  .

As an aside, I'm wondering when the current stock market bubble will burst.  All the profits major corporations are earning are not going into increasing productivity, but into mergers and acquisitions, and buying back their own stock.

When the loud and world resounding "POP" comes, of course, everybody not on Wall Street will regret the weakening of Dodd-Frank.

.  .  .

(The next day)
Okay, the Senate passed the Omnibus last night — passed it on the right, to be exact — and I've had a little more time to think about those contributions to party committees.  What really comes of that, it seems to me, is that the billionaire plutocrats gain a slight advantage over the multimillionaire plutocrats.  On the bright side, that may make them less inclined to give quite so much to the 501(c)3 and 501(c)4 groups.