Senate Democrats are on the verge of helping Congressional Republicans scale back key banking regulations signed into law after last decade’s massive financial crisis.
Moderate liberals on the Senate Banking Committee are working with Chair Mike Crapo (R-ID) to hash out a proposal that would relax rules on speculation and oversight of some of the country’s largest banks.
Bloomberg reported on Tuesday that Sens. Jon Tester (D-MT), Joe Donnelly (D-IN), and Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) are at the heart of efforts to revise the framework established in 2010 by Dodd-Frank financial reform.
The trio started engaging in talks with Crapo after negotiations broke down between the chair and the highest ranking Democrat on the committee, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio).
“You’ll see when he introduces a bill the differences we have,” Brown told Bloomberg. “They want to do too much to help the bigger banks.”
According to the news service, the bipartisan partial repeal efforts are centered around changes to the Volcker Rule and the asset size at which the Systemically Important Financial Institution (SIFI) designation is triggered. A draft could be released as early as this week.
The Volcker Rule was written to prevent banks from financing purely speculative investments with publicly-insured savings. It has thus far been enforced only once, in April, to levy $156 million in penalties on Deutsche Bank.
Influential Trump administration officials, meanwhile, are interested in raising the SIFI threshold from $50 billion in assets. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin has said he wants Congress to increase the bar to $250 billion — a move that would see rules relaxed on 26 banks.
Dodd-Frank financial reforms have not yet been revised by Congress since the election of President Trump.
In June, the House of Representatives approved of rules that would change the Dodd-Frank framework in a major way. The so-called CHOICE Act passed with the support of every Republican except Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC)
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy