This week, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) released the latest version of his financial regulatory reform bill, which aims to correct the deficiencies in the financial system that led to 2008′s economic crisis. The House of Representatives has already passed a comprehensive regulatory reform bill, and now that Dodd has given up on negotiating with recalcitrant Republicans, he is moving on an expedited timeline, with a markup scheduled for Monday.

It’s taken the Senate a year and a half after the financial crisis to even get to this point, but House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) told “an enthusiastic crowd of bankers” today that, even if the Senate passes a bill, reconciling it with the House version will take another year. “If the Senate is able to produce a bill, I think it’s just as likely that we’ll be talking about the same issue a year from now as we are right now,” Boehner said at the American Bankers Association government relations summit.

Boehner then added that the bankers should be standing up for themselves against “those little punk staffers” trying to write new regulations:

“Don’t let those little punk staffers take advantage of you and stand up for yourselves,” Boehner said. “All of us are hearing from our friends and constituents on lack of credit, you can’t get a loan, the more your government takes and taxes, the more regulations you have to comply with the more cost you have there and less amount you are going to have available to loan to customers.”

The fact that he’s willing to let another year lapse without putting in place new rules for Wall Street shows exactly where Boehner’s priorities lie. But it should come as no surprise, considering what Republicans have been up to this year.

In February, Boehner met “over drinks” with JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, where he “made a pitch” for Wall Street support by explaining that “Republicans had stood up to Mr. Obama’s efforts to curb pay and impose new regulations.” Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, “said he visited New York about twice a month to try to tap into Wall Street’s ‘buyers remorse’” with Democrats. These pitches had some effect too, as in 2009, “major Wall Street players began sending an increasing share of their donations to Republicans.”

Prior to Boehner’s speech, American Bankers Association President Edward Yingling urged delay in the financial reform effort, because “every day that passes gives more leverage to [Banking Committee Ranking Member Richard Shelby (R-AL)].” In his career, Boehner has received $3.4 million from the financial services industry, which is $1.2 million more than he’s received from any other industry.

Our guest blogger is Ulrich Boser, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

Over the coming days, congressional leaders will be debating the virtues of the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA), which would end costly subsidies to student-loan companies and reinvest the money into grants for low- and middle-income students. Part of the discussion revolves around the economic impact of the bill, and so we conducted a new data analysis, examining the additional expected lifetime earnings gained by students who would get new Pell grants and graduate from college under the proposal.

The resulting numbers astounded us. Our analysis found that the reform could inject as much as $126 billion in income into the economy over the lifetimes of those students.

Such an economic boost would have tremendous benefits for our nation and greatly help pinched state and federal budgets gain much-needed tax revenue. It would also benefit students, who would earn larger salaries and have better employment prospects. And it’s clear that even relatively small sums of aid can make a big difference. A recent Brookings Institution study found that among low-income high school graduates, a grant-induced decline of roughly $1,000 in net price resulted in an approximately a 7 percentage point jump in college-going rates.

For our analysis, we looked at the estimated number of new Pell Grant recipients under the adminstration’s proposal and then presumed that only 63 percent would graduate from college. We then multiplied that figure by a low and high estimate of additional lifetime earnings that the new grant recipients would earn with a college degree instead of a high school degree. Our analysis makes a number of other assumptions as well. (See our full brief for methodological details.)

Whatever the limitations of our methodology, though, our findings are consistent with other research in this area, which has found that higher education represents a very sound investment for the federal government, with a return on investment from increased tax revenues of 14 percent and a payback period of less than six years. Students who graduate from college also typically earn more money, have better health, and are more active in their communities.

In order to keep our country’s economic edge and make college affordable to all students, Congress should take action and pass SAFRA. Indeed, for federal, state, and local governments, the reform of the student loan system seems a win-win: While making government work more efficiently, it allows a greater number students to attend college who will in turn have higher incomes and produce larger tax revenues.

Read the full report here.

On Monday, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) released the latest version of his legislation overhauling the nation’s financial regulatory system. President Obama has praised the bill, saying that it “provides a strong foundation to build a safer financial system.”

Of course, the bill has set off a flurry of lobbying, particularly because Dodd has scheduled a committee markup for Monday. In fact, “just hours” after the bill came out, financial services lobbyists were taking shots at it, while the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has pledged to spend $3 million (in addition to the $3 million is has reportedly already spent) on watering down or blocking the bill.

Aside from the new consumer protection entity, which has been a flashpoint for months, a few provisions are emerging as the focus of the lobbying efforts, as groups look to blunt the effects of new laws or win themselves carve-outs and exemptions. Here are some of the key places where lawmakers need to take a stand against the financial services industry:

– No federal preemption of state law: Dodd’s bill, like the reform effort passed by the House last year, allows states to write stronger consumer protection laws than those set by the federal government (creating a federal floor for regulation, instead of a ceiling). The bill gives federal regulators the ability to preempt state law on a case-by-case basis, but banks want full federal preemption of the states, so that they only have to focus on watering down laws at the federal level. Allowing states to crack down on financial shenanigans at the state level could have mitigated much of the subprime lending that occurred in the buildup to the economic crisis.

– Better corporate governance: Provisions crafted by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) that give shareholders more power over their companies and hold corporate management more accountable for misdeeds are included in the bill. These changes are despised by big business groups like the Chamber, which is “mobilizing forces to lobby lawmakers” against them. Current imbalances make it incredibly difficult for shareholders to influence corporate directors or hold down excessive risk-taking (and excessive executive compensation); Schumer’s changes would start to change this.

– No carve-outs: Just like during the House debate, various business want to exempt themselves from various new rules. Credit unions want to avoid oversight by the new Bureau for Financial Consumer Protection, while corporations want to avoid having to clear derivatives on exchanges. But exemptions such as these create an uneven playing field and cause every lawmaker to search for a carve-out for his or her local businesses. Obama seems firm on preventing carve-outs, saying that he will not accept attempts to exempt “banks, credit card companies or nonbank firms such as debt collectors, credit bureaus, payday lenders or auto dealers” from the new rules.

The House bill passed last year, while strong overall, did include some unfortunate exemptions (like allowing auto dealers to escape oversight from new consumer protection rules). It’s a sure thing that the financial industry will try even harder to turn the Senate bill into swiss cheese, with loopholes and exemptions everywhere.