Obama Signs Wall Street Reform

President Obama has signed the financial reform bill into law:

Almost two years after a near-collapse of the American economy, President Barack Obama signed into law a historic rewrite of the regulations governing the nation’s financial system, declaring the end to an era of antiquated rules that left Americans vulnerable.

Obama described the law as a triumph for consumers and a necessity for business, saying the financial system “only works – our markets are only free – when there are clear rules and basic safeguards that prevent abuse, that check excess, that ensure that it is more profitable to play by the rules than to game the system.”

“And that is what these reforms are designed to achieve: no more, no less,” Obama said during the ceremony at the Ronald Reagan Building “Because that is how we will ensure that our economy works for consumers, that it works for investors, that it works for financial institutions – that it works for all of us.”

But as he celebrated his second major legislative victory since taking office, Obama is already under pressure from progressives, who were disappointed with the bill, to appoint an aggressive consumer advocate to run the new consumer protection bureau.

The liberal base has rallied around Elizabeth Warren, a plain-speaking Harvard University law professor who first proposed the idea of a consumer bureau and was in the audience Wednesday. But top administration officials, sensing opposition from Republicans and the business community, have said she is one of several candidates under consideration.

The White House’s reluctance to embrace Warren publicly has prompted some congressional Democrats and labor powerhouses such as the AFL-CIO and SEIU to launch impromptu campaigns on her behalf.

In his speech Wednesday, Obama said the consumer bureau would be led by a “watchdog with just one job: looking out for people – not big banks, not lenders, not investment houses – in the financial system.”

Obama signed the bill after months of debate that led to hopes of producing a strong bipartisan measure, but in the end it barely squeaked by in the Senate with a handful of Republican votes. Most Republicans argued the bill failed to address the root cause of the 2008 financial crisis – namely the lending policies at mortgage giant Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – and that the reforms would force financial firms to move jobs overseas.