Joseph Lawler reports for the Washington Examiner on U.S. House Republicans’ plan to target the controversial six-year-old Dodd-Frank financial reform legislation.
This is a new tactic for the GOP. Congressional Republicans have introduced legislation undoing parts of the law or changing some of its regulations, and even gotten some of those bills signed into law.
But although they have harshly criticized the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law, blaming it for slowing lending, overburdening small banks, and enshrining the phenomenon of “too big to fail,” they have not outlined how they would replace it and prevent the damaging crises and bailouts that spurred Congress to pass the law in the first place.
Following House Speaker Paul Ryan’s request for Republicans to pass legislation showing how the GOP would govern if they won the presidency, however, Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee are working on a broad plan for reforming the financial sector.
In a speech this month in Washington, committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling, R-Texas, outlined some of the main planks of the plan. He also issued a stark promise to undo Dodd-Frank, saying that “on behalf of every hardworking, struggling American — I will not rest until Dodd-Frank is ripped out by its roots and tossed on the trash heap of history.”
