In the fourth quarter of 2011, Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) reported raising $388,895.26 in campaign contributions. According to a ThinkProgress analysis, at least 44 percent of that came from political action committees and individuals connected to real estate, insurance, banking, and finance industries — areas overseen by the House Financial Services committee Bachus chairs.

According to his latest disclosure, more than $173,000 of Bachus’ total haul came from the financial sector. Over the past quarter Bachus received at least:

– $144,805 from employees of and PACs for banks, financial services firms, and venture capitalists. This includes $7,500 from Wells Fargo’s corporate PAC, $5,000 from U.S. Bancorp’s PAC, $5,000 from UBS Americas’ PAC, and $5,000 from payday lender Advance America’s PAC.
– $15,810 from insurance industry political action committees and from insurance agents for State Farm Insurance Co.
– $12,500 from real estate PACs and individual real estate agents and realty investors.

In 2010, Bachus candidly admitted that he believes Washington’s role is “to serve the banks.” As chairman, he has sought to cut foreclosure prevention programs and to repeal many of the the key reforms in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law.

Bachus, now in his tenth term in Congress, has also been in hot water for his financial investments. In November, CBS News’ 60 Minutes reported that one day after receiving a private briefing from the nation’s chief economic officials on the extent of the financial crisis in 2008, Bachus bet that the stock market would tank, “buying option funds that would go up in value if the market went down” and netting about $28,000. After the report broke, Bachus attempted to seize the high ground by moving a bill to ban the sort of insider trading he was accused of, but Republican leaders blocked his effort. One colleague reportedly said at the time that House Republicans were “not going to cover Spencer’s ass by passing a half-baked bill.”

Bachus is term limited as chairman of the Financial Services Committee, and has said that he won’t seek a waiver to keep the seat in the next Congress.

Last month, a 60 Minutes investigation revealed that House Financial Services Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-AL) made stock trades based on information that he received in private briefings during the financial crisis of 2008. Bachus’ trades reportedly netted him around $30,000.

Following the story, Congress suddenly found an interest in blocking its members from trading on information they receive in their official capacity. The Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, which would ban this sort of activity, picked up dozens of co-sponsors, after it had languished for months with nearly no interest. Bachus was evidently ready and willing to move the bill forward, in an attempt to clean up his own image, but several other Republicans, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), put the kibosh on that plan, according to Politico:

A day after Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus said he would move forward on an insider-trading bill, Majority Leader Eric Cantor stopped him dead in his tracks.

In a Wednesday meeting described by one source as “extremely direct” and by another as “very blunt,” Cantor (R-Va.) ripped into Bachus, explaining in no uncertain terms that it was unacceptable for Bachus to mark up the bill without having run it by GOP leaders and other chairmen with jurisdiction over its provisions. The Alabama Republican abruptly canceled the vote, which was scheduled for next week. [...]

“We’re not going to cover Spencer’s ass by passing a half-baked bill,” one Republican member of the panel told POLITICO. “Even Barney Frank didn’t pass it in his two terms as chairman and Dem[ocrats] are the lead sponsors. It’s all about Spencer’s bad political position, not the contents of the policy.”

“The public has an absolute right to demand that the people they elect to represent them in Congress conduct themselves according to the highest ethical standards and do not seek to profit from their positions,” Bachus said while announcing his intention to move the legislation forward. However, it seems that his leadership doesn’t quite see things that way.

CBS News’ 60 Minutes aired a report last night alleging that several members of Congress have traded stock using information they received during private briefings or meetings, enabling them to profit from inside information. By far the most damning story was about House Financial Services Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-AL), who in 2008, the day after receiving a private briefing from the nation’s chief economic officials on the extent of the financial crisis, proceeded to bet that the stock market would tank:

In mid September 2008 with the Dow Jones Industrial average still above ten thousand, Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke were holding closed door briefings with congressional leaders, and privately warning them that a global financial meltdown could occur within a few days. One of those attending was Alabama Representative Spencer Bachus, then the ranking Republican member on the House Financial Services Committee and now its chairman. [...]

While Congressman Bachus was publicly trying to keep the economy from cratering, he was privately betting that it would, buying option funds that would go up in value if the market went down. He would make a variety of trades and profited at a time when most Americans were losing their shirts.

Watch the report:

Bachus, who was the ranking member of the Financial Services committee at the time (since the Democrats held the house) made about 200 trades as the financial crisis peaked, netting about $28,000. “What we know is that those meetings were held one day and literally the next day Congressman Bachus would engage in buying stock options based on apocalyptic briefings he had the day before from the Fed chairman and Treasury Secretary,” said Peter Schweitzer, a fellow at the conservative Hoover Institution, whose work was the basis for CBS’ report. “I mean, talk about a stock tip.”

CBS also criticized House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) for trading health stocks right before the public option was officially killed and noted that former Rep. Dennis Hastert (R) and former Sen. Judd Gregg (R) profited from steering federal earmarks towards projects in which they had a financial stake.

In an attempt to balance its piece, 60 Minutes then found a Democrat to attack — House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), whose husband participated in a special stock offering from Visa while legislation affecting the credit card industry was pending in the House. Unlike 60 Minutes’ allegations against Republicans, there was no evidence provided that Pelosi used her congressional position to unethically enrich herself or that she sought to protect the credit card industry in any way.

Like House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), Bachus was betting that the country would fail economically, giving him a financial upside in an outcome that would be worse for the rest of the country. Previously, Bachus said that Washington’s role is to “serve the banks,” but in this instance, he seemed to believe that Washington’s role is to serve his own bank account.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-AL) has already announced his belief that Washington’s role is to “serve the banks.” To that end, Bachus has decided that Congress’ fiscal super committee, in order to reach its goal of $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction, should cut foreclosure prevention programs and repeal the Dodd-Frank financial reform law:

Bachus also recommended the committee cut funding for a variety of foreclosure prevention programs. He proposed ending the Home Affordable Modification Program early, which is set to expire at the end of 2012. Under HAMP, more than 816,000 borrowers received a permanent modification, which will still fall short of the 3 million to 4 million originally estimated.

The proposals also included cuts to the struggling Federal Housing Administration Short Refi program, the remaining unspent money for the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, various public housing operations under the Department of Housing and Urban Development and appropriations for the housing counselor organization NeighborWorks.

Bachus ended the letter with another call to repeal several provisions under the Dodd-Frank Act, pointing to faulty government housing policies rather than out-of-control Wall Street leveraging as the cause of the real estate bubble and the resulting financial crisis.

As BusinessWeek noted, “the proposals [regarding Dodd-Frank] range from changing the structure and funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and expanding exemptions from new derivatives regulations to a full repeal of the law.” Twenty-one other Republicans signed Bachus’ letter.

But left out of their equation is the fact that Dodd-Frank reduces the deficit by $3.2 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. So repealing the law, in addition to sending the regulatory system back to 2007, would actually make the deficit worse.

Of course, cutting foreclosure prevention funding would, indeed, reduce the deficit. But it would do so at the expense of a housing crisis that has continued to burn unabated. Though federal foreclosure prevention programs have been woefully implemented, the answer isn’t to give up and cut the funding. It’s to finance the sort of programs that have already been successful. Instead, the GOP is aiming to, once more, do the banks’ bidding when it comes to the federal budget.

The House today is scheduled to vote on a bill that would significantly weaken the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which officially opens for business tomorrow. The bill — sponsored by House Financial Services Chairman Spencer “serve the banks” Bachus (R-AL) — would abolish the position of Bureau Director, instead instituting a five-person board to run the agency, and also make it easier for the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) to overturn the Bureau’s rules.

These two changes would strike at the heart of the bureau’s independence and weaken its ability to protect consumer from financial industry excess. However, according to Bachus, the bill’s are merely the GOP’s way of ensuring that the bureau is a “success“:

Speaking with reporters, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-Ala.) said he did not want to see the bureau eliminated, but refined…“Now that the CFPB’s been passed into law, I think it’s incumbent on us to try to work to see that it’s a success,” he said.

In a sense, Bachus would be true to his word: the bill would make the bureau a success from the financial industry’s perspective, as it would be rendered weaker than other bank regulators and made incapable of doing its work in an effective fashion. Already, the FSOC has the ability to block any of the bureau’s rules (a veto threat under which no other agency has to operate); Bachus’ bill would make it easer for bank-centric regulators to stop the bureau’s common-sense attempts to regulate financial products.

The bill would also “prevent the CFPB from taking on any powers unless a Senate-confirmed director is in place,” which is an obvious ploy to stop the bureau from doing anything at all, since Senate Republicans have said they will filibuster anyone President Obama names to the directorship. All in all, the bill makes it clear that House Republicans want the Bureau to be entirely ineffective, since they’ve realized that repealing it is not in the cards.

Previewing a hearing he’s holding today on the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) told Fox Business yesterday that he plans to grill Professor Elizabeth Warren, who is setting up the Bureau as a special assistant to the president and could be nominated as its first director. Bank lobbyists and predatory lenders have lined up to generate opposition to Warren, who is a noted consumer advocate.

Issa’s hearings, as well as several GOP proposals to limit her power or scuttle her nomination, are viewed as part of an industry-led campaign to cripple Warren’s ability to rein in abusive practices in the credit card, mortgage, and related lending businesses. During the interview, Issa let his sympathies be known to world when he said that he feared Warren could “bully” the banking industry:

ISSA: As you know, we’re very concerned that this is essentially an entity funded around Congress and yet it has the ability to bully banks.

FOX HOST: Well I was going to ask you. Do you have a problem with her or the entity?

ISSA: Our big problem is with the entity.

Watch it:

When it comes to consumer financial issues, Issa should be investigating the mortgage lending industry, abusive for-profit schools, car title loans, and other forms of usury that have saddled Americans with debt and economic ruin. Instead, he hopes to embarrass the one person most likely to provide oversight over predatory lending.

Issa’s stand for the banks against “bully” Elizabeth Warren places him in line with other major GOP legislators working on behalf of Wall Street. Issa’s colleague, House Financial Services Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-AL), has openly said his job is to “serve the banks.” Bachus has also admitted that all of his anti-CFPB legislation is really just an effort to take down Warren.

Last month’s jobs report was undeniably dismal, and Republicans were quick to place blame on President Obama and the Democrats (even after they took credit for job gains that were made since January). But House Financial Service Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-AL) decided today that blaming the current crop of Democrats isn’t quite enough.

During his opening statement before a hearing on monetary policy, Bachus explained that, in his opinion, the blame for weak job creation should be placed at the feet of former Presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson:

BACHUS: The uncertainty and lack of confidence are at the center of the failure of our economy to achieve a robust recovery with job creation, job creation which would be necessary to support the continued improvement in our citizens’ lives that we’ve come to expect as Americans. The origins of this crisis of confidence is debatable. The Great Recession and its legacy of job losses and home foreclosures is a contributing factor, and those are things we’ll have to work through. And as your testimony said, it will be a long process. But in my opinion seeds of this lack of confidence were first sown in well-intentioned programs of the 1930s and of the Lyndon Johnson Great Society.

Watch it:

According to Bachus, businesses are so freaked out about New Deal and Great Society era programs (presumably Social Security and Medicare) that they aren’t hiring. But according to the June National Federation of Independent Business survey, the reason businesses aren’t hiring is easy: “when sales pick up, owners will have a reason to hire more workers to take care of customers, to produce more output and will have a reason to invest in new equipment and expansion.”

Bachus didn’t deign to explain his theory, but it’s worth pointing out that, while the private sector is slowly adding jobs, the public sector hemorrhaged jobs last month, coinciding with what conservatives say they want. After all, Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) essentially shrugged when asked if he cared about public sector job losses, while Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX) this week advocated that more government workers be laid off.

A groups of state attorneys general have been attempting to negotiate a settlement with the nation’s biggest banks over the foreclosure fraud scandal that erupted several months ago. Reportedly, the settlement will involve the banks paying billions in penalties, at least some of which will go towards helping troubled homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages through no fault of their own.

However, several Republican AGs have balked at requiring the banks to aid homeowners, with one, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, deriding such help as “welfare.” And now, House Financial Services Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-AL) is piling on:

Federal regulators are trying to prevent future fraud by clamping down on the nation’s largest mortgage servicers that engaged in some shady practices during the housing crisis, but the legal action by the states could yield significant financial penalties of more than $20 billion, according to some reports.

Bachus suggested that the money go toward paying down the national debt instead of forcing companies to reduce the amount some homeowners owe on their mortgages.

Bachus — who is of the opinion that Washington’s role is to “serve the banks” — has opposed the very idea of a foreclosure fraud settlement, so its not surprising that he would oppose using the money to aid troubled homeowners. But at the moment, more than 20 percent of the homes in America are underwater, and housing is proving to be a substantial drag on the economy.

At the current rate, it would take 103 months to “sell off all the foreclosed homes in banks’ possession, plus all the homes likely to end up there over the next couple years, at the current rate of sales.” That’s eight and a half years of backlog. Wall Street is also not maintaining the properties it owns, further dragging down the value of homes. More foreclosures and empty houses will do nothing to help the situation.

This week, President Obama hinted that the administration is planning to pressure banks into implementing additional aid for homeowners. Having the foreclosure fraud settlement provide substantial aid for homeowners would be an excellent development, but Republicans at both the state and federal level seem to be doing their best to prevent such an outcome.