Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna

As illogical as it seems, from what I've read, that is mostly correct, although I haven't been able to find a quote from Mitch McConnell complimenting the President.

While the legislation has been in the drafting stage for the better part of a year, it is only now that Harry Reid announced he wanted to bring it to the Senate floor for debate and a vote. It was at that point that Mitch McConnell, the GOP minority leader, announced that the 41 GOP senators would vote unanimously against the bill (41 votes). Later, the deputy GOP leader, Senator John Kyl, announced that the GOP would even be prepared to filibuster the bill to assure that debate wasn't even started.

President Obama did threaten to veto any financial regulatory bill passed by Congress that didn't have robust regulation of financial derivatives. A second bill, with comprehensive focus on derivatives, has been introduced by Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), chairwoman of the Senate Agricultural committee. The White House has said that the content of this bill, if integrated into the Banking Committee's bill, would meet with Obama's approval regarding derivative regulation. (The Agriculture Committee got involved because of the extensive use of derivatives by farmers to assure the cost of seed, feed and fertilizer and to assure the selling prices of crops and feed animals.)

While Republicans have enough votes to block the Democrats’ bill, they do not have enough votes to win approval of any amendments they might attempt to offer, which is why they are fighting so hard to make changes to the bill before the start of formal debate. Senators on both sides say that an agreement will likely be reached. Some observers believe that the Republicans may be attempting to prolong the process, using up legislative time that Democrats might use to introduce legislation on other issues.

Also yes, I think at one time or another several GOP senators were complimentary of the proposed legislation. One was Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) who was heavily involved in drafting the bill (but has now signed the letter saying he would vote against it). He said, "...the differences we have on this bill could be resolved with five minutes of negotiation".

A real good, balanced summary of the content of the bill and the winners and losers is presented in the following Reuters News summary...

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN...pe=marketsNews

One last forewarning...watch how the influence of the lobbyists for the banks and Wall Street investment banks affects this bill as it is negotiated. Their closest relationships have been with the GOP side of the aisle. Mitch McConnell met with a group of bank lobbyists just this week to discuss the proposed bill.