Kill the (Other) Bill!

Paul Krugman's piece in the Times today revisits what is now an all too familiar and worn out question: is it better to settle on imperfect compromise while the option to reform is available or should we instead hold our breaths and wait for better legislation? Of course, this time the bill in question is financial and not health reform. And this time, Krugman's answer is different.

So here’s the situation. We’ve been through the second-worst financial crisis in the history of the world, and we’ve barely begun to recover: 29 million Americans either can’t find jobs or can’t find full-time work. Yet all momentum for serious banking reform has been lost. The question now seems to be whether we’ll get a watered-down bill or no bill at all. And I hate to say this, but the second option is starting to look preferable.
[...]
There are times when even a highly imperfect reform is much better than nothing; this is very much the case for health care. But financial reform is different. An imperfect health care bill can be revised in the light of experience, and if Democrats pass the current plan there will be steady pressure to make it better. A weak financial reform, by contrast, wouldn’t be tested until the next big crisis. All it would do is create a false sense of security and a fig leaf for politicians opposed to any serious action — then fail in the clinch.
[...]
No reform, coupled with a campaign to name and shame the people responsible, is better than a cosmetic reform that just covers up failure to act.

This time around, I doubt we'll see anything close to the same level of controversy as when this same question was applied to the health care bill. For one, arguments over financial regulation don't really carry the same emotional wallop as, say, a debate over whether we ought to let poor blue-eyed American children die of tuberculosis. And unless I'm just making an ass out of you and me again, this time, the consequences, stakes, and therefore, solution to the above debate, seems a little more obvious depending on your policy preference. But in the off chance that this becomes another internecine handwringer for the American Left(ish), you read it here first!