Budget reconciliation was the fire-proof way Republicans were going to repeal Obamacare and enact Trumpcare without facing a potential filibuster in the Senate. But there was that little problem about them having no idea and even less interest in how to do anything with health care, so it failed. Massively. But they do know how to put Wall Street back in control, so that's their latest plan for budget reconciliation. Swap out Obamacare for the Dodd-Frank financial reform, and we'll all be back where we were in 2008 and banks will once again have the power to destroy the global economy.
All indications are that the GOP is more unified in how they want to go about “repealing and replacing” these regulations — most of which were passed as part of the Dodd-Frank Act in 2010.
For the past six years, these reforms have provided key protections to consumers and stability to the banking system by protecting consumers. They’ve made banks more resilient and created stability in the capital markets.
Expect Republicans, as in the case of the health care bill, to attack the regulations by way of the budget: specifically, through the “budget reconciliation” process that eliminates the threat of a Democratic filibuster. […]
Dodd-Frank can be weakened through neglect, and the regulators President Trump puts into place are certainly likely to try that strategy. But the main danger is funding. Paul Ryan's goal in the next two years is to recreate the federal government using a narrow majority and Senate budget rules to dodge the filibuster. This approach is dangerous when it comes to financial reform, because instead of creating a system that works for the overall economy, the proposals may well amount to a smash-and-grab of whatever fits this procedural trick.
Rapid change is the strength of this approach, but it would be rapid change in a direction that hurts consumers—and it makes a repeat of the 2007 to 2008 financial meltdown more likely.
There are a lot of targets within the law Republicans want to take down, starting with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau because those four words in combination apparently give them hives. Apparently if you're going to have a financial life, Republicans believe, you deserve to be screwed by banks, credit card companies, car dealers—really anyone who might take your money. The next four words they hate are Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), which monitors the financial system for "financial firms that pose an unusually high risk of collapse, panic, and uncertainty to the economy," and imposes tougher regulations for them. That obviously has to be defunded, because collapse, panic, and uncertainty is where they can really make some money. Too big to fail? Not if you're a Republican. They're likely to try to defund and and take away the emergency powers the FDIC has to deal with failing financial institutions. If a huge institution—like Lehman—is failing they don't believe there should be intervention prevent it. They think it's no big deal. Because somebody else will make money off of it, undoubtedly.
It's a brave new world for Republicans with popular vote loser Donald Trump in the White House, one in which they'll work destroy everything that have ever done anything good for most of us.