President Barack Obama said on Saturday he is "ready to fight" for a tough new agency to protect consumers from risky loans and other financial products and lashed out at groups that might stand in the way.
"These interests argue against reform even as millions of people are facing the consequences of this crisis in their own lives," Obama said in a weekly radio address.
"These interests defend business-as-usual even though we know that it was business-as-usual that allowed this crisis to take place."
Obama said opponents were already "mobilizing" against his proposal earlier this week to create a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency as part of the most sweeping set of financial regulatory reforms since the 1930s.
The new agency, which Congress would have to approve, would have the power to write rules and design or ban financial products. It could also examine firms and impose fines and other penalties on almost any institution that offers products such as home loans or credit cards.
Critics argue that the new agency would stifle financial product innovation, boost the cost of regulatory compliance and cause prices for consumers to rise.
"It's going to create exactly the type of duplication, second-guessing and layering that we feared," David Hirschman, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's Center for Capital Markets, said earlier this week.
Obama said the proposed agency was badly needed to help consumers make sense of complex financial instruments and to keep loan companies honest.
"Today, folks signing up for a mortgage, student loan, or credit card face a bewildering array of incomprehensible options. Companies compete not by offering better products, but more complicated ones -- with more fine print and hidden terms," Obama said.
"The American people sent me to Washington to stand up for their interests. And while I'm not spoiling for a fight, I'm ready for one."
Senior lawmakers have said they expect to pass financial reform regulation by the end of the year.
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, at a Senate hearing on Thursday, faced the most opposition to Obama's proposal to give the Federal Reserve new powers to police broad risks in the economy.
Some lawmakers believe the central bank failed to halt practices that led to the global financial crisis.
Giving the Federal Reserve more authority "is like a parent giving his son a bigger, faster car right after he crashed the family station wagon," said Senate Banking Committee Chairman Christopher Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat.
Infosys Technologies Ltd chairman and chief mentor N.R. Narayana Murthy Saturday hoped the union budget for 2009-10 would focus on inclusive growth, which he termed as 'the need of the country'.
'I don't have any specific expectation for the IT sector from the budget. But I hope the government will try to bring in an inclusive growth, as it is the need of the country to make sure the poorer people will also benefit from the economic progress,' Murthy told reporters here.
Elaborating on his budget wishes, Murthy said the government should have better focus on healthcare, education, shelter and nutrition for the betterment of the needy.
'We are very happy there is a stable government and that is good thing to the country. I am sure this stable government will do quite a lot for the country because it is free to implement its policies,' he said on the margins of the IT bellwether's 28th annual general meeting (AGM).
Expressing relief over the outcome of the recent general elections, Murthy said a two-party system was a stable model, as evident from such a system in the US, Britain and many other countries.
'By and large, two-party system is a stable model. It is an evolved system,' he pointed out.
Commenting on the severe financial crisis that had led to a global recession of a magnitude never anticipated by critics of the free market system, Murthy said compassionate capitalism had proved to be the only viable system because communism had failed and socialism had not worked as well as everyone wanted.
'Though I don't believe the free market system has failed, as critics have pointed out in light of the global meltdown and financial crisis, I do admit there are negatives in all systems. But I think, by and large, compassionate capitalism has proved to be the only viable system,' Murthy noted.