This Sunday's psalm evokes images of distressed mariners crying out for rescue as they sink to the depths. President Barack Obama Wednesday unveiled a plan to bolster the U.S. financial regulatory system so that in the future the government will not be forced to choose between rescuing sinking institutions and financial collapse.

Obama said his plan to refashion supervision of the U.S. financial system is needed to fix excessive risk-taking and lapses in oversight that helped push the economy into a prolonged recession. The president blamed the turmoil on a "culture of irresponsibility" that he said had taken root from Wall Street to Washington.

The president will push Congress to grant new powers to the Federal Reserve to oversee the economy. The proposal sets out the biggest overhaul of market rules in more than seven decades, adding an additional layer of regulation for the biggest firms.

A new Consumer Financial Protection Agency would oversee products from mortgages to credit cards. It would have authority to ban "unfair terms and practices," punish companies for violations with fines and penalties, and write rules to set higher standards for banks and non-bank companies.

"We are called upon to recognize that the free market is the most powerful generative force for our prosperity--but it is not a free license to ignore the consequences of our actions," Obama said.

But moving his plans through Congress as they are currently written is far from assured, given turf battles among lawmakers and what is sure to be heavy resistance from the financial sector. Obama acknowledged earlier this week that his revamp will be a "heavy lift."

Source: Articles by Henry J. Pulizzi and Damian Paletta for the Wall Street Journal and Robert Schmidt
and Hans Nichols for Bloomberg