This year will produce a perfect storm in American politics through the confluence of the need to achieve regulatory reform of America's financial institutions and what is promising to be a vigorous congressional political campaign, opening the mouths of candidates wide to be influenced by contributions from lobbyists and special interests.

It will not be fun for Americans who would like to see their legislators act in the best interests of the American people -- as opposed to acting so as to attract the maximum amount of campaign contributions from those who wish to continue to have unfettered access to government stimuli and other taxpayer-funded subsidies to keep their enterprises afloat while they loot their companies and the country.

There are means of slowing, if not stopping, this process. But it won't be easy. Long-time practice, stealth and just plain venality on the part of many of our legislators will make this phenomenon hard to head off. If anyone has ever tried to get a leach to loosen its little teeth from one's leg, the relationship between donors and lobbyists and America's politicians is easy to picture.

As of now, the same banks and financial institutions that wrecked the American economy, with the chickens coming home to roost in 2008 and last year, are still at it. They took risks which were -- to the disadvantage of the rest of the population -- highly profitable to their enterprises. They issued, for example, securities that were about as secure as a 6th-inning Pirates lead.

When realization began to come to the global financial market that it had been scammed, it was determined, first by the administration of President George W. Bush and others at the time, including then-New York Federal Reserve Chairman Timothy F. Geithner, that the perpetrators of the scam, the American International Group et al, were "too big to fail." This is a contention that Mr. Geithner, now President Barack Obama's Treasury secretary, and others still maintain, citing the failure of Lehman Brothers as evidence of the awful fate that was awaiting the rest of us if the American taxpayer did not rescue big firms such as AIG.

Now, here we are, in January, the time of year when the Wall Street and other financial pirates in question hand out bonuses to the imaginative devils who pulled off -- and continue to pull off -- the scam in question. The scam is, by the way, to take big, dangerous but profitable chances, knowing that if things get rough the U.S. taxpayer will save your bacon rather than letting you go under.

What -- to their expectant and our wondering -- eyes should appear than indications that the bonuses will run to seven or eight figures in cash or stock. The companies handing out the rewards, having been bailed out by the taxpayers, include Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley.

On the regulatory front, in Congress, where the money that the financial institutions have at their disposal and those who should be putting in place the regulations to stop their looting of the economy cross paths, here is where matters stand:

The House of Representatives has passed what could be a decent financial regulatory reform bill. It includes means to put to an end to the "too big to fail" argument for saving these institutions the next time they get themselves into trouble; regulation of the complicated "securities" that no one even understood, much less regulated; measures to require banks to maintain enough reserves to cover their operations and to give stockholders a means of keeping the bankers' compensation from reaching obscene levels.

But now the legislation must be passed by the U.S. Senate, which is, by clear evidence of its handling of the health-care reform legislation the killing field for useful legislation, a happy hunting ground for the financial industry's lobbyists and campaign contributors. They lie in wait for the Senate to return next week from its 26-day holiday break.

The Senate, and the House for that matter, which, if the Senate passes a bill, will have another shot at it with hands outstretched in the conference period, will clearly be in dire need of campaign financing for the 2010 midterm elections. The frantic flapping of wings that ensued when Sen. Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut and Sen. Byron L. Dorgan of North Dakota declared last week their intention not to run again, thus putting control of their seats in question, gave a clear signal of the state that members of Congress will be in as Nov. 2 approaches. Unfortunately for Americans, the anxiety of members of Congress about their futures means major augmentation of their felt need for cash to fuel their campaigns.

So what can Americans do?

First, there will be a vital need to keep close track of which candidates accept contributions and how much from financial institutions. That will provide a clear guide to whether these legislators represent the American taxpayer or the financial institutions. There are governmental and non-governmental organizations in Washington which track these things. It will be necessary to pay close attention to their findings as the regulatory legislation proceeds along its perilous path in Washington.

The second means of tracking what is going on is partly up to interested citizens and partly up to the media. Each candidate for national office must be asked in his campaign appearances, first, if he is taking money from financial interests, and, second, what his position is on the regulatory legislation.

An answer that he is on the "take" from one or more of them or that he opposes the regulatory legislation should serve as a strong reason to vote against him. America has to bring these people under control or they will wreck the economy again.

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