Here's how Ritholtz sums it up:
The idea that two senators from opposite sides of the ideological spectrum can find common ground to attack a problem with a simple solution is novel in the Senate these days. If Brown and Vitter manage to end the subsidies to banks deemed “too big to fail,” they will have accomplished more than “merely” preventing the next financial crisis. They will have helped to create a blueprint for how to get things done in an era of partisan strife.That is a worthy goal all Americans should be grateful for.
The truth is, complex bills are not a bad thing, per se, and elegant solutions cannot be found for all policy problems. Complex bills are bad when they are too abstruse for the public to care about, and then the armies of paid lobbyists who definitely do care march in and skewer and mangle them with loopholes in the rules-making process, which is what has been going on with Dodd-Frank for about two years. Big banks have been making the law more complex, then turning around and complaining about how complex it is... and wouldn't it just be easier to scrap it altogether, they have the gall to ask us?
Trying to find a similarly simple, elegant solution to, say, immigration reform would probably be impossible. Ditto the budget. Or health care. A carbon tax is another one of those elegant solutions that would unleash a virtuous cascade of market-driven responses, but it fails Ritholtz's bipartisan test, because conservatives reject any new taxes out of hand, and there is no opposing big industry lobby in favor of it.
You can try to come up with your own examples. Talk amongst yourselves....
By Barry Ritholtz
May 12, 2013 | Washington Post
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