Huffington Magazine Issue 33 | Page 64

FINANCIAL REFORM A Wishlist for the President By MARK GONGLOFF WHEN PRESIDENT Barack Obama first swore the oath of office, the backdrop was a financial system in flames. Four years on, the fires are out, but those who hoped Obama would make capitalism fundamentally safer are disappointed. Barring another crisis in the next four years, the president may have missed his best chance for a more significant overhaul of finance. But there are still things he can do in a second term to at least ensure that the accomplishments of his first term, embodied in the Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, don’t go to waste. Obama can’t rewrite laws or bend independent agencies such as the Federal Reserve to his whim. Any reform efforts are countered by a multitude of tireless financial lobbyists who have resisted every step of the way — often successfully — bankrolled by a deep-pocketed industry with influence over regulators, lawmakers and the media. But Obama can set the agenda, with his words and with the people he puts in key jobs, to let Wall Street know that Main Street will always come first. Because Main Street may be starting to wonder. “We are losing public support,”