Sen. Carper: Dems should drop areas of disagreement from Wall St. reform bill

Democrats should drop areas of disagreement with Republicans from their Wall Street reform bill in order to move forward, Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.) suggested Wednesday.

Carper, a member of the Senate Finance Committee, said that he thinks a bipartisan deal can be reached on financial regulatory reform legislation, and argued it should be done by dropping the most contentious areas of the bill.

"At the end of the day…we agree on about 80 percent of the stuff here," Carper said during an appearance on Fox News. "I think what we need to do is focus on the 80 percent on which we agree and set aside the 20 percent for another day."

Among those provisions creating friction is a $50 billion, industry-funded pool of money to help wind down financial institutions if they begin to fail. Republicans have derided this provision as a pool for endless bailouts, though they've also maintained other objections to the legislation.

Still, Republican opposition seemed to have softened midweek after Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who'd led the GOP charge against the legislation, said Tuesday that "serious talks" had resumed between Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) and Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), the committee's ranking member.

One GOP senator hinted on Wednesday that a breakthrough might be nearing, though it was far from guaranteed.

"It's moving closer toward a resolution, but obviously we don't know if we're going to reach a bipartisan solution as of today," said Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.), who appeared aside Carper.

Carper said he placed a lot of faith in Dodd and Shelby, and said that other senators in both parties were still willing to help strike a deal.

"Chris Dodd is an old pro at this. This is his last year at this, he wants to get this done. Richard Shelby is the ranking Republican on Banking," he said. "They want to get it done, and we can help."