A new regulation meant to prohibit federally-insured banks from engaging in risky trading practices will cost the nation’s largest financial institutions more than twice as much as originally estimated, according to a new analysis by ratings agency Standard & Poor’s. But the rule would also make those banks less of a risk to the U.S. economy, S&P found.

The Volcker Rule, which will keep banks that are backed by taxpayers from engaging in the risky proprietary trading that played an outsized role in bringing down the financial market four years ago, will cost the nation’s eight largest banks up to $10 billion in annual profits, two-and-a-half times as much as S&P estimated in 2010:

“We currently estimate that the Volcker rule could reduce combined pretax earnings for the eight largest U.S. banks by up to $10 billion annually, up from our initial $4 billion estimate two years ago,” S&P said today in a statement announcing a new report on the issue.

Still, that will hardly put a dent in their collective profits. The eight banks — JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bancorp, Citigroup, and PNC — earned more than $63 billion in combined profits in 2011 as Wall Street continued to rebound from the financial crisis. JP Morgan ($19 billion) and U.S. Bank ($4.9 billion) each posted record profits last year; Wells Fargo ($15.9 billion) and Citigroup ($11.3 billion) joined JP Morgan as the three banks to earn more than $10 billion in profits individually.

And, as S&P noted, less risky trading will lead to safer banks. “The implementation of the Volcker rule could have favorable implications for the credit profiles of some of the largest U.S. banks, such as reducing trading portfolio risk,” S&P said. “This risk mitigation could lessen revenue and earnings volatility, which we would view favorably.”

Wall Street has attempted to water down the Volcker Rule since its insertion into the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act in 2010. They were successful in lobbying for a loophole that allowed them to continue some risky trading practices, and since the law’s passage, the banks have attempted to make the rule even more tepid. Regulators are scheduled to finalize the proposed rule by the end of this year.

Republicans, during the current campaign, have continuously labeled the Obama administration as “anti-business.” “The president and his people just don’t understand how the private sector works,” said Mitt Romney. “Too often, you find yourself facing a government that looks at you like you’re the bad guys.” “This is certainly the most anti-business administration since the Carter years,” added Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY). “I think he borders on being hostile to the private sector,” said former Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR).

But three simple charts show that this charge is detached from reality. First, as the New York Times noted, since Obama came into office, “the Dow Jones industrial average has gained 67.9 percent. That’s an extremely strong performance — the fifth best for an equivalent period among all American presidents since 1900″:

Next, the S&P 500, measuring the 500 largest publicly traded companies, is up 80 percent:

Finally, corporate profits have soared back beyond their pre-recession heights:

Corporations made a record $824 billion last year. The Obama administration has also cut taxes for small businesses several times, and, of course, presided over a rescue of the auto industry that was almost universally opposed by Republicans. If this is anti-business, it seems that the business world could use more of it.

Tea Party Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) went on CNBC today and within the course of about two minutes managed to call for extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, while also hiking taxes on lower-income and working Americans. When asked by the host what he thought should be done about the upcoming “fiscal cliff,” Brady expressed frustration over the possibility that taxes could be hiked on “job creators,” the Republicans’ euphemism for the wealthiest 2 percent of the country:

BRADY: I think it’s irresponsible to drive off this fiscal cliff… What I worry about is the false choice we’ve been given right now which is either drive off that cliff and risk another recession, or raise taxes on the job creators and the professionals that actually would help get us out of the [economic hole].

A minute later, the host asked Brady what he thought about Social Security, and specifically whether he thought the payroll tax cut that was enacted in 2011 should be extended for another year.

One, the payroll tax holiday is blowing a hole in Social Security, which by the way has faced the largest deterioration in one year than in the last twenty years. And the disability program will go bankrupt in just four years. So clearly we can’t, as a nation, keep diverting one sixth of the revenue stream to that important program.

Watch it:

The payroll tax cut is not “blowing a hole” in Social Security’s finances. The language specifically uses general revenue to contribute to Social Security’s trust fund in lieu of the lost payroll tax revenue. The payroll tax is also regressive and thus falls especially hard on lower-income and working-class Americans — the Economic Policy Institute found that the payroll tax cut’s expiration would be one of the biggest hits to the economy in the upcoming fiscal cliff.

Conversely, EPI’s analysis also determined that, on a per dollar basis, allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire on upper income earners would do less damage to the economy than any piece of the fiscal cliff other than letting the estate tax cut expire. Even allowing the Bush tax cuts for middle and lower income Americans to expire would do more harm. So Brady is effectively calling for a tax hike on working Americans and a major hit to the economy, even as his party continues to insist on maintaining the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. His preferred policy not only benefits the wealthy at the expense of everyone else, it’s also counterproductive to his own ostensible economic goals.

NH-GOV nominee Ovide Lamontagne (R)

ThinkProgress asked Ovide Lamontagne at a campaign stop on Friday about whether a law that said men and women should be given equal pay for equal work would be a proper exercise of government. New Hampshire is currently the worst state in New England and one of the worst in the nation when it comes to the wage gap, with the average woman earning just 65 cents for every dollar earned by a man.

“I don’t know that it’s appropriate for the government to continue to micromanage the workplace,” Lamontagne declared. He went on to say that women should be able to sue if they feel they’re being discriminated against, but professed ignorance on whether New Hampshire law already provides for such a remedy:

KEYES: It seems like one of the overarching themes has been the role of government, especially here in New Hampshire. What about something like a pay equity law, that men and women should be paid equal pay for equal work. Is that something that you think would be appropriate for the role of state government here in New Hampshire?

LAMONTAGNE: I certainly think women should be paid the same as men. Young workers should be paid the same as older workers if they achieve the criteria for salary. But I don’t know that it’s appropriate for the government to continue to micromanage the workplace. But if there’s a legitimate disparity I think there’s remedies that are available, for discrimination in the workplace, and if there aren’t we should have that legal remedy available. If people feel, man or woman, that they’re being discriminated against on a salary compensation, they should be able to assert that claim if that is in fact the case.

KEYES: But the difference between a law and legal recourse? I guess I’m slightly confused about the difference there.

LAMONTAGNE: The law may actually be giving legal recourse. I’m not familiar enough with employment laws right now in New Hampshire to know whether or not there is in fact right now available remedy.

Listen to it:

New Hampshire is currently one of 17 states that requires employers to offer equal pay for “equal work,” but the law is so riddled with loopholes that it’s been rendered effectively meaningless, as evidenced by the state’s massive wage gap. In addition, current law places the burden on workers to prove discrimination, which can be quite difficult to realize in the first place, either because of social taboos or actual laws preventing co-workers from discussing their salaries.

Recently, one of the few things both parties in Washington seemed to agree about was allowing the current payroll tax cut to expire on schedule in 2013. The payroll tax was reduced by two percentage points for workers and the self-employed as part of the tax deal at the end of 2011.

The White House has signaled disinterest in the tax cut’s fate; House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner are both on record in favor of expiration. Even the AARP, the country’s leading advocacy group for seniors, piled on, arguing that another extension would undermine Social Security.

So far, the only major voice pushing the other way has been former economic advisor to the White House Larry Summers. But now it looks like he may have some backing in Congress:

Some Democrats in Congress are seeking to include an extension of the $120bn payroll tax cut in negotiations over the looming “fiscal cliff”, shaking what had appeared to be a bipartisan consensus to allow the measure to expire as planned at the end of the year. The move could complicate the budget talks due to begin after the November presidential election and alarm rating agencies – since the sunset of the payroll tax measure is the only big provision that both parties seem comfortable directing towards deficit reduction. [...]

Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the budget committee in the House of Representatives, told C-SPAN television at the weekend: “I don’t think anyone thinks we should permanently extend the payroll tax cut but, given the situation we’re in, I don’t think that should be taken off the table.”

Absent a sufficiently stimulative replacement that has clear political viability, there are reasons to heed Van Hollen’s suggestion. For one, payroll taxes are regressive and fall harder on those lower down the income ladder, meaning the increase would fall on millions of already hard-pressed working Americans. For that reason, JPMorgan recently downgraded its GDP growth forecast for next year on the assumption the expiration will go through. Its conclusion was that an extension would help the economy more than an expiration would hurt it.

The Economic Policy Institute also estimated the holiday’s expiration would deliver one of the fiscal cliff’s biggest hits to economic growth next year. In fact, EPI’s analysis found it does more damage to the economy per dollar than to the budget. For most parts of the fiscal cliff, the opposite was the case. So by keeping some parts of the fiscal cliff while canceling others — such as the payroll tax holiday expiration — damage to both the economy and the budget could be minimized.

EPI acknowledged that the payroll tax cut as it stands is not optimal stimulus. But it added, “optimal policy responses are hard to come by these days.”

The tax cut’s threat to Social Security’s future is also overstated. The 2011 payroll tax holiday specifically required losses to the program’s trust fund be repaid out of general revenue. An extension would likely include similar language.

Over the last four years, Greece’s economy has contracted by 18.4 percent. The International Monetary Fund sees no end to the bleeding in sight, estimating that the Greek economy will shrink by another 4 percent next year. As Bloomberg News noted, this puts Greece in Depression territory:

The economy shrank 18.4 percent in the past four years and the International Monetary Fund forecasts it will contract another 4 percent in 2013 as Greece struggles to reduce debt in exchange for its $300 billion rescue programs. That’s the biggest cumulative loss of output of a developed-country economy in at least three decades, coming within spitting distance of the 27 percent drop in the U.S. economy between 1929 and 1933, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis in Washington.

An despite Greece’s austerity measures — implemented to appease international lenders — public debt is growing as the economy collapses:

The IMF forecasts that government expenditure this year will fall to levels last seen in 2006, while unemployment will reach almost 24 percent of the labor force, more than double the pre-crisis average, and the government’s debt will be 344 billion euros, higher than in 2010 and about double the level Greece claimed in 2003.

As ThinkProgress explained, America has rebounded from the financial crisis better than Europe has, in part because it embraced stimulus measures while the Eurozone has placed its bet on austerity. This chart shows that the U.S. has grown faster than the Eurozone or the UK:

Some economists posit that Europe is headed for a lost decade. U.S. conservatives, meanwhile, continue to push for austerity that clearly isn’t working on the other side of the Atlantic.