In delivering his address today, President Obama left much of the red-meat populist rhetoric in Washington. That may be a good thing because you catch more flies with honey, than with vinegar. However, the President didn’t give ground on his positions, calling for a stand-alone consumer protection regulator, derivatives regulation without end-user flexibility, proxy access, the Volcker Rule and even used the speech to call for the Bank Tax. No evidence, publicly at least, to fix the five flaws I outlined earlier. 

Back inside the Beltway, Senate Majority Leader Reid filed a cloture motion and called for a vote on it for Monday at 5:00 pm. Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell issued a tough statement calling for proof that the bill will end bailouts and later said that bi-partisan talks should continue.

So while the rhetoric has cooled, it appears that the Administration and the Senate leadership, on both sides of the aisle, are locked into their positions and are setting a short deadline on achieving a bi-partisan deal setting up the stage for an attempt to ram a partisan bill through the Senate.

So it looks like the clock is ticking, can Senator Dodd and Shelby reach a deal? That remains to be seen, but a good bill is needed while just any bill is not worth the effort.

A bipartisan deal that allows American workers, entrepreneurs and businesses to have access to capital and succeed or fail on their own will help propel the free enterprise system into creating jobs and economic growth for the next generation. A partisan approach that extends government regulatory power into Main Street and places businesses at a competitive disadvantage is a formula for stagnation.

What the speech and all of the post-speech press missed is that capital markets are the fuel that allows the engines of job creation to operate. A burdensome regulatory structure will act as a governor on the engine, while an imbalanced regulatory structure can allow the engine to burn itself out. Playing chicken can be fun, but not when it comes to job creation. In the end that’s what this debate is all about.