The Washington Post is reporting that Wall Street contributions to Democratic campaign committees are markedly lower than this time in 2006 or 2008.

The drop in support comes from many of the same bankers, hedge fund executives and financial services chief executives who are most upset about the financial regulatory reform bill that House Democrats passed last week with almost no Republican support. … This fundraising free fall from the New York area has left Democrats with diminished resources to defend their House and Senate majorities in November’s midterm elections.

With Democrats seeking to impose reasonable regulations designed to protect the American people, this is no surprise.

The Republican Congress was a dream come true for the rapacious financiers who dragged our economy over a cliff, just as it was for all manners of giant corporations. We’re seeing the results of the Republican ideology of allowing the most powerful industries to write their own laws and draft their own regulations. Not even the Supreme Court is immune, as a recent report from our affiliate People For the American Way Foundation demonstrates.

Deregulation has made the most powerful even more powerful, while the rest of us find ourselves more and more helpless against corporate behemoths.

Anyone who’s spent an hour on hold waiting to get through to a large corporation knows who holds the power in our society, and it isn’t us. These companies have been allowed to become so large that they can afford to mistreat their consumers in ways that no business would have gotten away with a generation ago.

Are you happy with the level of corporate influence on our politicians and on our lives? Do you wish you could make Big Business even stronger?

Or do you think it’s time for Americans to retake control of our lives? If so, then it’s time to act. Because the corporations aren’t sitting this election out.