DN Editorial: 'Financial beat cop' gets grilled, but Warren is best for the job

NONE OF THIS "of the people, by the people, for the people" stuff when it comes to the honorable representatives of Wall and K streets.

And forget about "We feel your pain" for any of the 2.2 million American families with homes in foreclosure.

The new chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Republican Spencer Bachus, of Alabama, recently shared his self-described "Main Street" perspective with hometown reporters. "In Washington, he said, "the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks."

Later, Bachus amended his comments to allow that well, of course, there should be some bank regulation, but his worldview - and that of his colleagues - is apparent. And the 2 1/2 hours they spent haranguing consumer champion Elizabeth Warren at a House subcommittee hearing last week banished any doubt.

Committee members accused Warren of everything but shoplifting in her role as special adviser to President Obama charged with setting up the Consumer Financial Products Bureau created by the financial-reform law passed by Congress last year.

Warren is the telegenic Harvard professor with a remarkable ability to explain complicated financial issues in easy-to-understand sound bites. It was she who proposed the idea of a federal agency dedicated primarily to consumer interests in mortgages, credit cards and the like - what she calls, in an overused metaphor, "a cop on the beat" for financial services.

And everybody, no matter what the politics, trusts that Warren will fight hard for consumer interests. This is why progressives love her and why the banks (and the conservatives who love them) detest and fear her. . . . It's also probably why President Obama - who, with many other Democrats, got big campaign contributions from Wall Street - had to be shamed into appointing her last summer. And why she's a long-shot at best to be Obama's nominee to head the agency when it's up and running in July.

That is, if it even gets that far: Republicans are trying to hobble the bureau before it even opens its doors by cutting its funding and replacing a single director with a five-member board.

Last week's line of attack charged Warren with usurping power by advising the 50 states' attorneys general about a possible settlement with big banks that could establish basic rules on mortgage foreclosures. The rules would be enforced with $20 billion from the banks themselves.

Some Republicans say this is a shakedown. To us, the modest outlines of the settlement are discouraging. No one, not even Elizabeth Warren, is doing the investigations that would lead to the perp walks these criminals so richly deserve.

Last week's venom also was a warning to Obama of what would await Warren if he was to nominate her to head the bureau - and Obama is nothing if not conflict-averse.

Still, we believe a confirmation hearing, even if Warren lost a vote, would provide an opportunity for a much-needed trip down memory lane - all the way back to 2008, when we discovered the massive abuses that left the lives of millions of Americans in ruins. Remember how we vowed to prevent it from happening again?

Reminder: Follow the city budget hearings on Twitter, #phillybudget. Today's hearing is on the capital budget, from 11 a.m.-3 p.m.