Opponents of reform already have spent millions of dollars trying to muddy the waters, but it’s clear that the status quo caused the financial crisis, and benefits the big banks, Wall Street insiders and abusive lenders who are fighting to preserve it. The rest of us – employed and unemployed workers, homeowners, retirees, investors, and small-business people – profoundly need a change.

The banking lobby already has spent $1 million in lobbying per member of Congress to fight financial reform – and more than $1 million total per day in 2009 and this year. Indeed, there are four lobbyists per member of the House and the Senate working for the industry on these issues.

And now the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, bankrolled by the biggest banks, just announced a plan to spend $3 million opposing financial reform, even as growing numbers of small businesses, who first faced unfair fees and lending practices from the banks and now have seen lending dry up altogether, declare their support for the Consumer Protection Agency and other elements of reform.

At the American Bankers Association conference in Washington this month, Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, the top Republican on the banking committee, told attendees that the best way to make sure that Congress does not create a strong Consumer Financial Protection Agency is to elect more Republicans to the Senate. Shelby asked each of the attendees to send $10,000 to Rep. Roy Blunt, a staunch opponent of the House financial reform bill who is now running for Senate as a Republican in Missouri.

It is hard to say with a straight face that either the banks like the Dodd bill or that the Senate would be doing the banks a favor by passing it. And yet, after the House of Representatives passed a similar set of Wall Street reforms last year, a front group launched by a North Carolina Republican operative who has refused to reveal his funding sources spent $2.2 million on advertisements claiming it was really a bill to “bail out” big banks.

When the full Senate takes up the bill in April, Rhode Islanders will likely hear more of the same – that the package is another bailout, a sop to the big banks rather than an effort to rein them in. These ads may come to Rhode Island because the big banks want to push back against Sen. Jack Reed, who as a leading member of the banking committee has said he would put forward amendments to strengthen the bill and protect consumers.

If it sounds strange that Wall Street, the big banks and their allies are fighting tooth and nail for the bill to be called a bailout, well, it is indeed backward. But it makes perfect political sense. It’s no secret that the American people are angry at the banks, whom they largely blame for the economic crisis. Any smart interest group, and politicians who want to defend them, would try to align the other side with such a juicy target.