"The Obama administration on Thursday unveiled a sweeping overhaul of the financial system designed to impose greater regulation on major players like hedge funds...The administration's proposal, which will require congressional approval, would represent a major expansion of federal authority over the financial system. Highlights of the plan include:
• Imposing tougher standards on financial institutions judged to be so big that their failure would represent a risk to the entire system....
• Creating a systemic risk regulator to monitor the biggest institutions. Geithner did not designate where such authority should reside, but the administration is expected to support awarding this power to the Federal Reserve. The plan also includes a measure that Geithner and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke discussed before the committee on Tuesday to give the administration expanded powers to take over major nonbank financial institutions, such as insurance companies and hedge funds that were teetering on the brink of collapse."Republicans need to demonstrate, now, that there are alternatives to this kind of big government takeover, and that there are differences on these issues between Republicans and Democrats.
