President Obama, Sen. Dodd, and Rep. Frank at Wall Street reform
signing ceremony. (Jim Young/REUTERS)
Speaker of the House John Boehner and crew are forging ahead on their latest major job creation effort to undo the past two years of legislative accomplishments, and are now targeting Wall Street reform for repeal.
After months of trying to defund and defang Dodd-Frank at the administrative level, Republicans are finally unveiling draft legislation that would repeal or amend parts of the laws approved after the severe 2007-2009 financial crisis....
"It's the first direct assault," said a congressional aide. "Up until now it's been about trying to deprive the agencies of what they need to implement Dodd-Frank."
The repeal legislation will target several provisions: repealing executive pay disclosure, exempting private equity firms from having to register with the Securities and Exchange Commission, and easing new requirements on end-users of over-the-counter derviatives like credit default swaps, and repealing legal liability for credit rating agencies like Moodys or Standard & Poor's in cases where their ratings were inaccurate.
Because, gawd knows, just requiring more transparency from financial firms is blatantly un-American, or something. As former FDIC chairman Bill Isaac points out, Dodd-Frank probably wouldn't have the teeth to prevent another big crisis because it didn't end "too big to fail" banks. But it might at least throw up some warning flags before everything came crashing down. The transparency requirements in Dodd-Frank could help with that. But that's too far even for Wall Street, or its bought-and-paid-for Republicans, to go.