Press Statement
Contact: Jake Leon
Tel: 202-618-6430
Washington, DC, October 24, 2013
Cutting the CFTC Budget Irresponsibly Endangers Main Street
“The last financial crash was incubated, ignited and spread through unregulated derivatives markets. The CFTC has been charged with making sure that doesn’t happen again. Cutting the CFTC budget and furloughing staff takes the cops off the derivatives beat and puts Main Street at the mercy of Wall Street again. It will needlessly and irresponsibly endanger investors and markets,” said Dennis Kelleher, President of Better Markets, a nonprofit organization that promotes the public interest in the financial markets.
“The CFTC must be fully funded now and allowed to self-fund in the future just like the SEC and all the other financial markets and banking regulators and supervisors. Protecting markets and preventing financial crises should not be subject to the political and budgetary whims of the moment, not to mention relentless Wall Street lobbying to defund the CFTC. It is indefensible for any public official to allow the CFTC to be woefully underfunded and Main Street to be unprotected,” Mr. Kelleher said.
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Better Markets is an independent, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that promotes the public interest in financial reform in the domestic and global capital and commodity markets. Better Markets advocates for transparency, oversight and accountability with the goal of a stronger, safer financial system that is less prone to crisis and failure thereby eliminating or minimizing the need for more taxpayer funded bailouts. To learn more, visit www.bettermarkets.com.
