“The leaders of the Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission said funding issues are hampering their ability to enforce new rules in the derivatives, commodities and other markets.

“Mary Jo White and Gary Gensler, chairmen of the SEC and CFTC, respectively, said Congress needs to appropriate the agencies more money to help them deal with the added workload from the Dodd-Frank Act and the Jumpstart Our Business Startups Act. That includes their capacity to pursue companies that violate new rules.

“‘There’s no question that additional resources are essential to our successful enforcement strategy,’ said White. ‘One of our specific requests in the president’s budget is for additional trial attorneys, and we can’t judge at this point how many additional trials we’re going to have, but we already don’t have enough [lawyers].’

“Gensler agreed, noting that the government’s $180 billion bailout of insurer AIG amounts to 600 times President Obama’s most recent budget request for the agency.

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