Financial Reform Bill Looks to have White House Appoint Inspector General at Financial Agencies

Los Angeles (Obama.net) – A recent provision inserted in the democrats’ financial regulatory bill would turn the positions of five inspectors general at financial agencies into political appointees.  The inspectors general positions that would be affected include those at the Federal Reserve, Commodity Futures Trading Commission, National Credit Union Administration, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

With the recent economic woes the US has faced the Obama administration has come under fire for the lack of action by several federal agency watchdogs.  The inspector general is in charge of making sure that everything within a particular federal agency is running smoothly.  If things are not going as planned this inspector general is supposed to step in and correct the situation.

Many people feel that the US economy would not be in the poor condition that it is now if several of these federal inspectors general would have done a better job regulating their industries.  Another problem that many people have with this issue is that several of President Obama’s watchdog appointments have yet to be confirmed by the Senate.  These positions are not viewed as important as confirming a cabinet secretary or Supreme Court justice.  This lack of urgency to get these agency watchdogs into place is one of the main reasons why the democrats are fighting to turn these important positions into political appointees.

In recent years agency watchdogs have served an important purpose.  These inspectors general have been responsible for investigations surrounding passport snooping, catching spies and investigating the destruction of CIA tapes show harsh interrogation techniques.  It is because of these prior instances that these positions have proven their importance.  Without these government watchdogs in place there is a much higher likelihood that corruption and misdeeds will take place.  On paper it sounds like a good idea to turn these positions in political appointees so that we can get competent people into these watchdog roles in a timely fashion to hopefully prevent another economic collapse.  I do believe that if these watchdogs would have been doing their job correctly they would have noticed all of the bad financial decisions that were being made on wall street and could have stepped in and stopped the financial downfall before it happened.