Thaindian News

By Meena Kar
Washington, Apr 27, (THAINDIAN NEWS) On Monday, the Senate Democrats were unable to gather the minimum number of votes that would have begun the debate on the financial reform bill. The Senate Republicans on Monday, went to vote against the bill and were joined by some of the Democrats. This led to the shortage of vote counts in favor of the financial reform bill. The Democrats won 57 votes while the minimum votes needed for the bill to get on to the debate table were 60 out of the total 100. The Republicans on the other hand managed 41 votes.

The vote counts differed from what was believed it should have been as Democrat Senator Ben Nelson joined the Republicans. Senate Majority leader Harry Reid too shifted his vote to “No” which will enable him to call for another tally on Tuesday. The Republicans, who have voiced their concern over the financial policies of the Wall Street along with the Democrats, maintained that the present bill does not address the reform properly. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell on Monday argued that the delay vote does not mean that the Republicans are against such a bill, but only that they want a bipartisan bill.

President of United States Barack Obama has been pressing for the financial reform in the banking sector for some time now. In a recent speech in front of the Wall Street’s top executives and bankers, the President said that the financial reform should be supported to reduce the risk of falling into another crisis like the recent recession that the United States has suffered. The White House was hoping that the recent $1bn fraud prosecution of Goldman Sachs would help the Democrats to get enough votes in the bill’s favor.