President's Financial Bill Passes After Bitter Debate

     Minority Leader McConnell Questioning Secretary Geithner

The day has been filled with Democratic praise and Republican backlash from President Obama's recently introduced financial legislation. Finally, the bill was introduced in committee as an amendment today and reported to the floor.

Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) introduced an amendment that calls for more regulations on financial institutions to "protect consumers and investors."

As he has done throughout the day, Sen. Grassley (R-IA) immediately decried it as a "massive and unprecedented power-grab by federal government" that is "completely irresponsible." He promised that it "won't find the support of any Republican," a sentiment that was echoed by Sen. Kyl (R-AZ).

Sen. Schumer lashed back at the GOP, pointing out their many examples of abusing power during the last eight years, including the authorization of torture without Congressional oversight.

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner was called in as a witness to discuss the bill, finding himself in a heated debate with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

To reiterate the democratic stance, Sen. Schumer then made a point to explicitly ask which party was in power for the last eight years and thus responsible for the crisis. Of course, Geithner's response was "Republican" for both.

The final vote was divided 100% along party lines, and passed.

Sahil Kapur contributed to this article.