It's happening. The teeth are being slowly pulled out of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. The LA Times explains:

The move this week to downgrade a proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency to lure bipartisan support instead appears to be undermining the Obama administration's effort to overhaul the nation's regulation of the entire industry.

The overhaul, aimed at preventing a repeat of the economic meltdown that helped send the nation and world markets into a deep recession, now might be moving closer to the junk heap of congressional bills than to a significant new law.

Creating a powerful and independent consumer agency, which is strongly opposed by the financial industry and Republicans, has been the major roadblock in drafting a bill that could pass in the Senate. Desperate to surmount that hurdle as this year's legislative clock winds down, Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) floated the idea this week of putting the new agency in the Federal Reserve.

Although the move would gain some Republican support, it has led to howls of protests from many Democrats and consumer advocates that threaten to derail any compromise. And for good reason.

America is suffering from the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. We let the banksters call the shots and they did - to the tune of record profits for them and a lack of jobs and opportunity for us. Now, they're trying to strip the teeth out of an organization that will protect us from their excesses. The LA Times continues:

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks), another supporter, said Wednesday that many House Democrats were unlikely to agree to give the Fed more consumer authority.

"It's somewhere between bad and terrible," Sherman said of the proposal. "For a number of my colleagues . . . that might just kill it."

Dodd's proposal might not even get through his own committee, potentially adding further delay in a mid-term election year in which major legislation is unlikely to get through Congress if not finished by the summer.

Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said he and some colleagues on the Banking Committee would try to amend the legislation to add a stand-alone consumer agency outside the Fed or any other banking regulatory body.

"There's quite a bit of disappointment with the Fed," Reed said Wednesday. "I think the best approach is an independent entity."

The banksters and their obstructionist friends are at it again. It's time for us to pressure our Senators to look out for Main Street, not Wall Street.