For months, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency — led by John “master of disaster” Dugan — has been lobbying against the creation of an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA). The OCC is responsible for regulating nationally chartered banks, and was instrumental in allowing pernicious subprime lending to spread by exempting national banks from predatory lending laws in many states.

Up to this point, the OCC has been parroting the banking industry’s line that an independent CFPA would undermine bank “safety and soundness.” Dugan has been particularly vocal with his opposition, saying that the current consumer protection system “works fine.” He even reacted to Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd’s (D-CT) regulatory reform legislation by saying “in every case consumer protection has the edge and will trump safety and soundness and I think that is backwards.”

But today, as Shahien Nasiripour reported, the OCC has abruptly changed positions and now supports creating an independent agency:

The OCC’s position on the proposal has “evolved over time” from one of minimal support with several caveats to one in which they now are “very much in favor of,” deputy comptroller for public affairs Robert M. Garsson told the Huffington Post on Tuesday…“It’s unlikely there will be any meaningful conflicts between safety and soundness and consumer protection,” Garsson said. “The potential for conflicts is very rare.”

With this “evolution,” the OCC is joining the growing consensus among current and former regulators that having a separate consumer protection agency will not undermine bank safety and soundness. “I cannot recall a meeting I sat in where we worried about consumer protection and looked at safety and soundness and said the two are in conflict so how do we solve this,” said Kevin Jacques, a former OCC official. “I would love to see one regulator provide a concrete example where safety and soundness and consumer protection are in conflict and it caused some difficulty. I can’t think of one.”

“In my experience I do not recall seeing a case where a consumer protection regulation was found to pose a threat to safe and sound operations of the banks,” added Brad Sabel, a former New York Federal Reserve Bank official. Of course, even the banks themselves don’t really buy that a CFPA would undermine their soundness. As Elizabeth Warren pointed out yesterday, back in 2006 the banks were arguing that it would be too confusing to combine consumer protection and bank regulation, and that the problem was “best addressed by separating them.”

So why did the OCC flip? Is it the scathing New York Times piece that was published this week? Or was it pressure from the Obama administration, since the OCC is technically a division of Treasury, yet was going around and bashing an administration priority?

Whatever the case, I’m still skeptical that the OCC is really on board with a consumer protection entity that will have enough independence to be effective; it may just be positioning itself to water-down the agency’s power somewhere down the road. But at least the OCC is willing to be one more voice acknowledging that the banks’ main argument against creating the agency is bunk.

Since the Affordable Care Act passed last week, some of the country’s largest companies have complained about a provision that preserves a federal subsidy they receive for providing retirees with prescription drug coverage, but prevents them from deducting the subsidy from their taxes. Republicans and right-wing media have latched on, claiming health care reform is going to hurt American businesses.

Today, Boeing Co. is the latest corporation to complain, announcing that it expects to take a $150 million tax hit because of the new law:

“Boeing will no longer be able to claim an income tax deduction related to prescription drug benefits provided to retirees and reimbursed under the Medicare Part D retiree drug subsidy,” the company stated in a release. “Although this tax increase does not take effect until 2013, accounting standards require that a deferred income tax asset be written down in the period legislation changing the tax law was enacted.”

An association representing 300 of the largest U.S. corporations is pushing for a repeal of the provision that ends the tax break on the government subsidy, something the Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky called “the worst kind” of taxpayer waste and “the most egregious form of corporate welfare.” These companies will still receive their subsidy, but they’ll no longer be able to take the tax deduction as well (so-called “double dipping“).

But Boeing’s complaint further rings hollow because the industry giant is among the largest U.S. companies that pay the least in corporate taxes. Conservatives complain about the high 35 percent U.S. corporate tax rate, but because of corporate welfare such as the prescription drug deduction, Boeing’s tax rate was just 3.2 percent averaged over the last 4 years and just 0.7 percent averaged from 2002 to 2007. And Boeing’s three-year effective tax rate from 2001-2003 was -18.8 percent.

But also, according to Boeing’s 2009 annual report, the company paid no federal income tax in 2009 and actually received $132 million back from the IRS. And in 2008, Boeing paid just $44 million in federal income taxes while netting $2.7 billion in earnings that year.

Therefore, it’s difficult to take Boeing’s whining seriously. After all, if they had any complaints, they could have aired them back in September when the Senate Finance Committee inserted the provision to end the tax break in the health care reform bill. And even then, the measure won approval from many business interests, with the chairman of Business Roundtable saying “it’s very closely aligned to [our] principles.”

In an interview published today with the Wall Street Journal, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) — who took the lead on financial regulatory reform negotiations for the Republican side for a few weeks — said that he “absolutely cannot support” the reform bill passed by the Senate Banking Committee last week. “I have no plans to support the current legislation. I hope we’ll get back to the negotiating table,” Corker said.

But interestingly, Corker doesn’t want to actually put his money where his mouth is and take a vote against the bill on the Senate floor:

Democrats have said privately they think it will be hard for some Republicans to vote against new banking rules during an election year. Mr. Corker said he hoped “the administration will not put pressure on the schedule and dare the Senate to vote on the bill.”

Of course, Corker is already on record having voted against this particular bill, since it passed out of committee with zero Republican support. But his plea to keep the bill off the floor until it is sufficiently watered down to garner some GOP support seems to confirm the view of many (including Paul Krugman) that producing a strong bill and forcing Republicans to either support it or show their true colors is precisely what needs to happen.

The GOP — and Corker in particular — have consistently said that they support financial reform and that they expect a bill to be signed into law by the end of the year. Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) has even said that his party agrees with 85-90 percent of what Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) is trying to do.

However, at the same time, they are actively courting the banking industry and its campaign contributions. In fact, Shelby himself told a crowd of bankers that a good way to prevent an independent Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA) from coming into being is to “elect more Republicans to the U.S. Senate.” “That would help immensely,” Shelby said, while asking the bankers to start with $10,000 contributions to Rep. Roy Blunt’s (R-MO) senate campaign.

The Senate reform bill crafted by Dodd already includes concessions to the GOP, including placing a new consumer protection bureau inside of the Federal Reserve (instead of creating a standalone agency) and more reliance on bankruptcy courts for unwinding failed financial firms (provisions which were crafted by Corker and Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA)). By continually saying that they want to move the bill “back in the middle of the road,” Republicans mean water it down and cut key restrictions needed to rein in the banks.

In the end, the path to getting a good bill may be in doing exactly what Corker is warning against: putting a good product on the floor and daring Republicans to choose between the banks and a secure financial system.