Sen. Brown would filibuster Dodd’s financial regulatory reform legislation

Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) defended his party’s opposition to financial
regulatory reform and said he would join in a filibuster against the
Democrats’ current bill.

“There are a lot of things in the Dodd bill that are just bad for
small businesses,” he said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” Sunday, his first Sunday show interview since winning late Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy’s seat. “The
present bill is not a good bill, period.”

{mosads}He attributed the tension over the proposed reforms to President Barack Obama’s “political arm” taking over the debate.

On Saturday, Obama accused Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
(Ky.) of making a “cynical and deceptive assertion” about the bill
after meeting with Wall Street executives. McConnell said this week
that the bill “not only allows for taxpayer-funded bailouts of Wall
Street banks, it institutionalizes them.”

Brown said that Republicans weren’t trying to block the president’s agenda.

McConnell’s “not saying no to financial reform,” Brown said. “We want banks to be banks. We don’t want them to be casinos.”

He added, “Let’s stop playing games and let’s stop politicizing it.”

Still, Brown wouldn’t commit to voting with the GOP against a
different version of the legislation. “I look at each bill in an
independent manner and vote accordingly.”

Asked by host Bob
Schieffer why he didn’t attend this week’s Tea Party rally in Boston
which featured former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), Brown noted he was
busy with official duties.

“I’ve been to rallies before,” he said, adding he has “respect” for the Tea Party and Palin.

Brown
also dodged the question of whether he thought Obama is leading the
country toward socialism. He called the president a “good man” and said,
“He is an American; I know he cares deeply about our country.”

“I don’t think he’s making [the right] choices in dealing with the free market and free enterprise,” Brown said.

About
his recent trip to Afghanistan, Brown said he met with President Hamid
Karzai and left “convinced he was sincere.” He added, “I left
Afghanistan hopeful.”

At the end of the interview, Schieffer noted that Brown’s eldest daughter, Ayla, a former “American Idol” contestant, had recently joined CBS News.