White House Must Not Cave in to Wall Street & Cut Funding for Financial Regulators

 

“The White House must not wave the white flag of surrender on derivatives reform and abandon the financial regulators at their time of need, which is right now. Reports that the White House budget is going to slash its request for funding for the CFTC by more than 10%, from an already grossly inadequate $315 million to just $280 million for an agency with responsibility for markets larger than $400 trillion, is wrong by every measure and a disservice to the American people. It is bad policy, politics, economics and sends the wrong message,” said Dennis Kelleher, President of Better Markets, a nonprofit organization that promotes the public interest in the financial markets.

 

“Wall Street and its political allies have fought nonstop for years to make sure the financial regulators were not fully funded to cripple them so that they could not properly police Wall Street. They are protecting Wall Street profits at the expense of Main Street jobs. President Obama and his administration have fought against this and must not retreat now,” Mr. Kelleher said.

 

“The financial regulators are all that stand between Wall Street’s reckless gambling and Main Street damage. The CFTC are the derivatives cops on the Wall Street beat. It’s their job to prevent another crash like 2008, which was mostly caused by unregulated derivatives trading by Wall Street’s biggest banks. That crash caused the worst economic wreckage in the U.S. since the Great Depression, has affected every single American and is going to cost the U.S. more than $13 trillion,” said Mr. Kelleher.

 

“To require the CFTC to do all that, regulate the derivatives markets, police Wall Street and prevent another financial crash, but to deprive them of adequate funding, is to set them up for failure and criticism. That is a huge win for Wall Street’s biggest, most dangerous banks, but a loss for everyone else. The CFTC and all the financial regulators must be fully funded now and the President must fight for that,” Mr. Kelleher concluded.

 

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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.