Powerful Wall Street Lobbying Group Lets Republicans Know What Has To Be Done On The Debt Ceiling
According the Washington Post, Wall Street's powerful lobby group, The Financial Services Roundtable (FSR) will be working hard against the Republican party to see the debt ceiling raised. The group is headed by former GOP Presidential candidate, Tim Pawlenty.
From WaPo:
“We are in favor of raising it, and we will be encouraging policy makers to increase it,” Scott Talbott, the senior vice president for public policy for the Financial Services Roundtable, told me today. He added that the group was gearing up to communicate the demand for action to Congress, an effort that could include sending letters to every member. “We will communicate with the entire Congress,” he said.
The FSR and the people they represent are afraid of what will will happen to markets if the ceiling isn't raised. No one, after all, wants a repeat of the summer of 2011 when the S&P cited the brutal debt ceiling debate as a reason for downgrading the U.S.'s credit rating.
“The markets have baked in the fact that Congress will make the shot at the buzzer,” Talbott said. But he warned: “If they don’t make the shot, the first trading day after, the markets will go haywire.”
The FSR's voice on this matter could actually make an impact on Republican lawmakers? Why? Because the FSR is a big GOP donor, that's why. In 2012 the group had a bit less than half a million dollars to shell out, and 69% of that went to Republicans, according to OpenSecrets.com.
So we'll see how the GOP deals with this one.