Earlier today, the Senate broke a Republican filibuster by a 60–39 vote and approved major financial reform legislation. Even before the bill passed, House Minority Leader John Boehner declared at a press conference, “I think it ought to be repealed.”
However, not all of Boehner’s colleagues are rushing to join his immediate call for repeal. ThinkProgress caught up with Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) — a former GOP whip and current Senate candidate — to ask him if he supported Boehner’s plan. After pausing for a few seconds, Blunt danced around the question. When pressed again, Blunt said that “it’s just a hypothetical question” and “really doesn’t matter right now”:
TP: Obviously you’ve been following the financial reform bill. I was curious, if it ends up passing — which it looks like it will — would you be in favor of repealing the bill?
BLUNT: Well, the bill does look like it’s going to pass. I think probably what the most likely thing to happen now is that people are going to have to watch and see if the difficulties for small banks — the restriction on credit — really occurs. And if it does, as I anticipate it will, we’ll have to take a second look at this bill and the country will demand it.
TP: But you wouldn’t immediately be in favor of repealing it?
BLUNT: It’s just a hypothetical question, it really doesn’t matter right now.
TP: Well, you’d voted against it before. Do you regret that vote now, or do you still think that we shouldn’t have this law — well, this bill that’s about to become a law?
Blunt: Why don’t you get back to me when the bill becomes a law?
Listen here:
As The Wonk Room’s Pat Garofalo points out, repealing the bill would mean: losing the ability to unwind failed banks without engaging in bailouts, halting the efforts to make the derivatives market more transparent, allowing risky trading to continue, and disbanding the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, among other things.