“No one will know until this is actually in place how it works. But we believe we’ve done something that has been needed for a long time. It took a crisis to bring us to the point where we could actually get this job done.”

Chris Dodd, Democrat from Connecticut

This is great. Another draconian law from Washington that nobody can actually explain or knows how it works but they are about to pass it anyway.

Via the WaPo:

Key House and Senate lawmakers agreed on far-reaching new financial rules early Friday after weeks of division, delay and frantic last-minute deal making. The dawn compromise set up a potential vote in both houses of Congress next week that could send the landmark legislation to President Obama by July 4.

Lawmakers pulled an all-nighter, wrapping up their work at 5:39 a.m. — more than 20 messy, mind-numbing, exhaustive hours after they began Thursday morning.

“It’s a great moment. I’m proud to have been here,” said a teary-eyed Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee led the effort in the Senate. “No one will know until this is actually in place how it works. But we believe we’ve done something that has been needed for a long time. It took a crisis to bring us to the point where we could actually get this job done.”

Both the House and Senate must approve the compromise legislation before it can go to Obama for his signature.

Despite myriad changes in recent days, Democrats appear poised to deliver a final bill that largely reflects the administration’s original blueprint unveiled almost precisely a year ago. While it would not fundamentally alter the shape of Wall Street or break up the nation’s largest firms, the legislation would establish broad new oversight of the financial system.

A new consumer protection bureau housed in the Federal Reserve would have independent funding, an independent leader and near-total autonomy to write and enforce rules. The government would have broad new powers to seize and wind down large, failing financial firms and to oversee the $600-trillion derivatives market. In addition, a council of regulators, headed by the Treasury secretary, would monitor the financial landscape for potential systemic risks.

It seems to me this bunch in Washington are like a bunch of high pressure salesmen trying to get the American people to buy this notion we need more regulation and control from Washington.

The WaPo Story ends this way:

Weary lawmakers wrapped up their work just after sunrise, only hours before Obama was scheduled to head to Toronto for a meeting of global finance ministers and central bankers. Both Dodd and Frank said they hoped the passage of the legislation by their committees will help the United States lead the ongoing global effort to harmonize new financial safeguards.

“We’ve put in the hands of the president a very powerful set of tools for him to reassert American leadership in the world,” Frank said.

One of the last motions Friday was to name the bill after the two chairmen, who had shepherded the legislation through the House and the Senate over the past year. At 5:07 a.m., they agreed unanimously that it would be known as the Dodd-Frank bill, and the sound of applause echoed down the empty hallways.

How fitting the bill is named after the ethically challenged Chris Dodd and the architect of the housing market bubble and collapse, Barny Frank.

And why does any President need a “powerful set of tools” to do anything? He has the authority granted to him in the Constitution and nothing more.

Elections have consequences.