Today, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 4173, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2009, by a vote of 223-202. The bill overhauls the nation’s financial regulatory system by creating a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA), providing a dissolution mechanism for dismantling failed financial firms (without using taxpayer money), and bringing some transparency to the derivatives market.

“This legislation brings us another important step closer to necessary, comprehensive financial reform that will create clear rules of the road, consistent and systematic enforcement of those rules, and a stronger, more stable financial system with better protections for consumers and investors,” said President Barack Obama.

Regulatory reform has been the focus of an intense lobbying campaign on the part of the financial services industry, which has spent $344 million (and some time huddling with Republicans) trying to figure out ways to kill it. And before the final bill came to a vote, conservative Democrat Rep. Walter Minnick (ID) proposed an amendment removing the CFPA and replacing it with a consumer protection council composed of 12 existing bank regulators.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) called the provision “the bureaucratic version of the Christmas song,” but still, it was only defeated 223-208, with 33 Democrats voting in favor of dumping the CFPA. Also, an amendment that would have added a provision to the bill allowing bankruptcy judges to cram-down mortgage payments for troubled homeowners was defeated 241-188, with 71 Democrats voting against.

Overall, 27 Democrats (and every Republican) voted against final passage of the bill, siding with the financial services industry and Wall Street banks against consumers and regular investors. After the jump is a full list of Democrats who either voted against final passage or in favor of Minnick’s amendment: Read more

Yesterday, the Treasury Department released its latest data on the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP), which has come under significant fire due to the unwillingness or inability of mortgage servicers to get enough eligible borrowers into the program. The new report isn’t making things look any better.

According to Treasury, about 728,000 borrowers have been enrolled in the program, up from 650,000 last month. But of these, just 4 percent (31,382) have made their way from the three-month trial stage of the program to a permanent modification.

Earlier this week, Bank of America and JP Morgan Chase went to Capitol Hill, where they suggested that borrowers themselves were responsible for HAMP’s lack of progress, because they can’t seem to get their documents together and filed. BofA claimed that more than three-fourths of the borrowers eligible for a permanent modification have not gotten their documents in. “It is unclear why this has happened to such a high degree,” the bank said.

Even if we accept BofA’s numbers at face value — and as ProPublica’s Paul Kiel pointed out, “the data from servicers should be viewed with skepticism” — then how does BofA explain that just 98 borrowers have been given permanent modifications. That’s less than .1 percent of the homeowners who received trials. Even if only 15,000 borrowers have gotten their documents filed correctly, why have fewer than 100 received a permanent modification?

For comparison’s sake, JP Morgan Chase, with a portfolio half the size of BofA’s, has 4,302 borrowers with permanent modifications. Are JP Morgan’s clients simply better at getting their documents together?

For all of Bank of America’s whining about irresponsible homeowners, it is clearly failing compared to some of the other servicers. BofA is likely dragging its feet because there is no consequence for failing to enroll borrowers in the program, and because it has been pushing its own, lousier, private modification program. Read more