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The Senate Agriculture Committee yesterday cleared a path toward creating a financial reform bill when it overwhelmingly voted in favor of regulating the complex system of financial trading known as derivatives. The vote follows one on a similar bill in the Senate Banking Committee. This now means there will be a likely merger of two financial reform bills for a debate by the full chamber. The House of Representatives already passed their version of the bill some months ago. Among the provisions that could make it into a final bill are regulations addressing the “bank-that’s-too-big-to-fail” concept, protecting consumers from bad mortgages and credit cards, and banning risky trading. Until this week Republicans were vehemently in opposition to any type of reform but have now softened their stance saying a compromise was likely. Recent polls have shown a large public appetite for reigning in Wall Street. However, conservative ideologues in the media like Rush Limbaugh are already misinforming the public with fears of too much government control over business, and assertions that reform would squash innovations like debit cards and Paypal. Wall street firms have been deploying thousands of lobbyists to Washington DC to fight the reform. But some progressive economists fear that the bill doesn’t go far enough. In a letter sent to Congressional leaders, 36 respected thinkers including including former Labor Secretary Robert Reich, wrote “Neither the bill passed earlier this year by the House, nor the one currently under consideration in the Senate would have prevented the crisis. Without serious restructuring, they will not prevent a future crisis.” Meanwhile, the Securities and Exchange Commission last Friday launched a surprise lawsuit against Goldman Sachs, charging them with “defrauding investors” over mortgage-backed securities in a case that illuminates the dire need for financial reform.

GUEST: Les Leopold, co-founder and director of The Labor Institute and the Public Health Institute, and author of The Looting of America: How Wall Street’s Game of Fantasy Finance Destroyed Our Jobs, Pensions, and Prosperity — and What We Can Do About It. He writes for Huffington Post and Alternet

Find out more at www.thelootingofamerica.org.