GOP: No More Bailouts

Today GOP House members on the Financial Services Committee unveiled a financial regulatory reform package to challenge Obama's still-coming-together plan.

Here's what it intends to do, according to the office of John Boehner:

(1) the government stops rewarding failure and picking winners and losers; (2) taxpayers are never again asked to pick up the tab for bad bets on Wall Street while some creditors and counterparties of failed firms are made whole; and (3) market discipline is restored so that financial firms will no longer expect the government to rescue them from the consequences of imprudent business decisions.

I haven't had time to examine the plan in detail, but here's the quick summary of what it would do according to early reports:

--"streamline" the bankruptcy code, and generally promote bankruptcy proceedings as a way to deal with troubled insitutions as opposed to bailouts or restructuring.

--expressly prohibit the Federal Reserve from taking a more activist role in regulating systemic risk.

--set up a "Market Stability and Capital Adequacy Board" of experts to identify systemic risks.

My initial thoughts: If Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke could not correctly identify the dangers of the housing bubble, what team of experts would the Republicans put on this board that could be so prescient?