What A Difference One Senator Makes: Scott Brown v. Elizabeth Warren

Since Scott Brown left the Senate, he has joined Nixon Peabody — a law firm that lobbies on behalf of big banks. He’s also become a contributor to Fox News — a “news” channel that lobbies on behalf of big banks. And in his spare time, he’s toyed with moving to New Hampshire — where he has a vacation home valued at around half a million dollars — to find a Senate seat he actually has a chance of winning.

This doesn’t leave him much time to drive around in his famous pickup truck.

But he was able to squeeze in a speaking engagement at the SALT Conference, brought to you by your friends at the hedge fund Skybridge Capital. There he’ll be speaking on one of his favorite topics: The consequences of over-regulating hedge funds.

If there’s one thing Scott Brown has never been guilty of, it’s over-regulation.

As he ran for re-election, Brown often touted his vote in favor of the financial reform known as Dodd-Frank. But he never mentioned that his chief accomplishment was watering it down by adding language written by — how’d you guess? — big banks. He also singlehandedly blocked a $19 billion fee on the nation’s largest financial institutions.

And because he was so effective in saving them $19 billion and preventing “over-regulation” or even any regulation that might eliminate the chances of a repeat of 2008’s financial crisis, Scott Brown will be a very rich man for the rest of his life –thanks to the big banks. A small price to pay to stay “too big to fail/jail.”

The woman who defeated Scott Brown, of course, is Elizabeth Warren — one of the first people who tried to warn the nation about the impending debt crisis, and the tenacious advocate for the middle class who created the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Since Senator Warren took office and her seat on the banking committee, she has been relentless in doing the one thing the big banks fear — holding them and their regulators accountable. Instead of doing their bidding, she’s wondering why banks aren’t shut down when they get caught abetting drug trafficking, or why they get to decide for themselves which homeowners they illegally foreclosed on.

Senator Warren has also been willing to criticize her own party and her old boss President Obama when he proposes policies — like “Chained CPI” for Social Security — that she thinks hurt the middle class.

When the Occupy Wall Street movement began in 2011, many credited Warren with awakening Americans to the continued exploitation perpetrated by the big banks and the richest 1 percent, which has led to massive wealth inequality. In a way, her service in Washington, DC has been a continuation and maturation of that movement. She’s inside the system and scaring the crap out of bankers and regulators every day.

Meanwhile Scott Brown — who represented the 1 percent — is enjoying the spoils of doing Wall Street’s dirty deeds… dirt cheap.

Senator Elizabeth Warren’s greatest hits follow below.

On The Minimum Wage

On The Banks’ Money Laundering

Questioning Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke About ‘Too Big To Fail’ Banks