When President Barack Obama signs the landmark financial reform bill Wednesday, there will likely be another chorus from certain quarters of the now-familiar tune that his administration is poisoning the nation's business climate. Never mind that this U.S. Chamber of Commerce melody amounts to blaming one's doctor for the disease being treated; it seems to be the song of the newly regulated, and they're sticking to it.

Many on Wall Street don't like the legislation either, and that's at least understandable. The reforms designed to protect average consumers (from abusive lending practices, for instance) and taxpayers (from future financial bailouts) don't necessarily enrich big financial firms. That sort of short-sightedness is typical of the financial industry.

But how downright bizarre for some CEOs and business lobbyists to claim Mr. Obama — the same fellow who stuck his political neck out to help General Motors and Chrysler and supported some of the nation's largest financial institutions when credit markets were tanking — is somehow unfriendly to private enterprise.

The bill the president will sign is not perfect. The full consequences of it won't be known for some time. Much of the outcome depends on future government rulemaking, a product of the complex nature of the industry and the desire not to have Congress micromanage it.

If, however, there are lingering problems in the credit market, that is not the product of reform but of the economic malaise wrought by the financial meltdown. It was under-regulation, not over-regulation that put this country on the verge of another Great Depression two years ago. Mr. Obama has spent the first half of his term trying to set it right.

Many in the business community don't like to hear the president raking them over the coals. The White House's tough but appropriate reaction to BP in the wake of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has added to their perception of him as anti-business. But if anger at BP is a symptom, count a majority of Americans as suffering from creeping socialism, too.

The CEOs would no doubt prefer to be the recipients of tax cuts, neutered regulators like the Minerals Management Service and other forms of government favors. But that sort of "pro-business" pampering is how the federal deficit grew in the first place during the George W. Bush years and how catastrophes like the BP spill were made possible.

Wall Street reform isn't hurting consumer confidence, nor is it causing employers to be reluctant about hiring. Both are mostly the products of an abundance of caution, a reaction to a precipitous economic fall. The reforms Mr. Obama will sign into law are of a medicinal nature — not a spoonful of sugar but helpful in the long term on both these fronts.