Geithner pushes for financial overhaul

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner on Wednesday urged lawmakers to fight for financial regulatory reform, insisting that full recovery from last fall's meltdown required "changes across the entire financial system."

Speaking before the House Financial Services Committee, Geithner specified those reforms should include new consumer protections, stronger limits on financial risk-taking and better safeguards for American tax dollars.

"But make no mistake: The flaws in our financial system and regulatory framework that allowed this crisis to occur, and in many ways helped cause it, are still in place," Geithner said. "We may disagree over details of how to best fix those flaws, but that cannot mean we do not act."

Geithner's testimony on Wednesday is merely the latest push in the Obama administration's campaign to improve the financial system and strengthen its regulatory bodies. The president first made his case for reform earlier this month, when he told Wall Street investors and bankers on the one year anniversary of the meltdown that he thought an overhaul was possible by the year's end.

The Treasury secretary echoed the thrust of Obama's remarks at the hearing this morning. He stressed that an ideal reform package would fold a few smaller oversight offices into one, new position -- the National Banking Supervisor --  and establish a Consumer Financial Protection Agency (CFPA).

The White House's plan would also "impose tough rules on our largest, most leveraged, and most interconnected firms" in order to strengthen the financial system while the defeating the perception that some firms are "too big to fail," he explained.

But it was unclear on Wednesday whether lawmakers would heed Obama and Geithner's suggestions for regulatory reform or craft their own overhaul bill. Blue Dog Democrats, at least, have already offered their own reform counter-proposal, which committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) rebuked earlier this week.

Ignoring that early squabbling, Geithner reiterated the White House's commitment to passing a regulatory reform quickly.

"Time is the enemy of reform," the Treasury secretary said. "As some normalcy returns to our financial system and our economy, we cannot let it be cause for complacency."