House Speaker Paul Ryan's big policy-making binge to try to make people forget that Republicans have settled on Donald Trump continued apace this week. That included a proposal from Texas Rep. Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, to dismantle Dodd-Frank—and most of the important financial reforms it encompassed.
Key provisions would reduce the power of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and allow banks to avoid stricter oversight by increasing the amount of capital they hold.
That sounds smart! Banks don't need no stinking oversight, amirite? If you smell the interference of Wall Street in Hensarling's big plan, you've got a very good nose.
Simply put, Dodd-Frank is cutting into the bottom line of the financial services industry and Hensarling is coming to its rescue. By July 2015, the CFPB (which again, was created by Dodd-Frank) had returned more than $10.8 billion to more than 25 million Americans harmed by illegal practices of the financial industry.
It is no surprise that Rep. Hensarling would announce his intentions to gut Dodd-Frank; he has received nearly $5.5 million in campaign contributions from key financial industry interests since 2010. Furthermore, as this report details, Hensarling’s House Financial Services Committee has become a revolving door with numerous members of his staff either coming from, or leaving to work in, the financial industry.
It goes way beyond the frankly astonishing $5.5 million the financial industry has invested in Hensarling himself.
The report details more than a dozen staff members of Hensarling's committee moving to Wall Street in the past decade, many taking on lobbyist positions. That's not to mention the handful that have disclosed investments they have in the firms that their friends and former colleagues are lobbying for, or the various junkets the industry has sent staff on.
You have to say this for Hensarling: He's spreading the wealth from his position at the top of the financial services committee. Not only is he raking in millions in campaign donations, his staff is landing some pretty sweet deals as well. It's almost enough to make you think that the financial services industry actually owns his committee.