• Latest
  • Trending
  • All
  • News
  • Lifestyle
Republicans who rolled back bank regulations got donations from SVB — now they "want to go further" thumbnail

Republicans who rolled back bank regulations got donations from SVB — now they “want to go further”

March 16, 2023
Balanced budget takes back seat to paring spending to ‘22 levels at GOP retreat thumbnail

Balanced budget takes back seat to paring spending to ‘22 levels at GOP retreat

March 21, 2023
A potential Trump indictment is a sideshow gift to the Biden family thumbnail

A potential Trump indictment is a sideshow gift to the Biden family

March 21, 2023
Alaska oil drilling protesters disrupt White House climate adviser appearance thumbnail

Alaska oil drilling protesters disrupt White House climate adviser appearance

March 21, 2023
Biden vetoes Republican effort to overturn socially conscious retirement rule thumbnail

Biden vetoes Republican effort to overturn socially conscious retirement rule

March 21, 2023
Here’s How Gasoline Prices Fared Under The Last Four Presidents thumbnail

Here’s How Gasoline Prices Fared Under The Last Four Presidents

March 20, 2023
America used to have its own lion. Where did they go? thumbnail

America used to have its own lion. Where did they go?

March 20, 2023
Twitter Files: Vast censor project unleashed against politically incorrect COVID-19 speech thumbnail

Twitter Files: Vast censor project unleashed against politically incorrect COVID-19 speech

March 19, 2023
House Oversight chair questions $1.3 million in payments to Hunter Biden and relatives thumbnail

House Oversight chair questions $1.3 million in payments to Hunter Biden and relatives

March 19, 2023
Who Was the Boston Strangler? The True Story Behind Keira Knightley's Film thumbnail

Who Was the Boston Strangler? The True Story Behind Keira Knightley’s Film

March 19, 2023
Republicans take aim at Biden student loan forgiveness thumbnail

Republicans take aim at Biden student loan forgiveness

March 19, 2023
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink walks tightrope on climate investing thumbnail

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink walks tightrope on climate investing

March 18, 2023
U.S. tells TikTok owners to sell app or face a ban thumbnail

U.S. tells TikTok owners to sell app or face a ban

March 18, 2023
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
  • Donate
Tuesday, March 21, 2023
66 °f
Wellfleet
58 ° Tue
63 ° Wed
68 ° Thu
61 ° Fri
  • Login
  • Register
FREE Cape Cod News
DONATE
  • FREE Cape Cod News
  • News
    • News
    • Cape Cod News
    • Massachusetts
    • Breaking News
    • Cape Cod Weather
    • Storm Watch
    • Environment
  • Politics
    • democrats
    • republicans
  • Business
    • business
    • cryptocurrency
    • economy
    • money
    • Real Estate
    • Tech
  • World
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Photos
    • Orleans
    • Eastham
    • Wellfleet
    • Truro
    • Provincetown
    • Brewster
    • Chatham
  • Videos
No Result
View All Result
Free Cape Cod News
No Result
View All Result
  • FREE Cape Cod News
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • World
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Photos
  • Videos
Home News

Republicans who rolled back bank regulations got donations from SVB — now they “want to go further”

FREE Cape Cod News by FREE Cape Cod News
March 16, 2023
in News, Politics
Reading Time: 4 mins read
Donate
0
Republicans who rolled back bank regulations got donations from SVB — now they "want to go further" thumbnail
632
SHARES
1.4k
VIEWS
Share on TwitterShare on Facebook
The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history, came just years after a Republican-led bill rolled back bank regulations imposed after the 2008 financial crisis — raising criticism of the role Republicans played in weakening the Dodd-Frank regulation, which could have prevented the tumbledown, according to a new report released by the left-leaning government watchdog group Accountable.US.

Former President Donald Trump in 2018 signed into law the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, which severely watered down risk-assessment rules put in place in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis to try to stop banks from crumbling.

Dodd-Frank, a 2010 law signed by former President Barack Obama, created stricter regulations for banks with at least $50 billion in assets. These banks were required to undergo an annual Federal Reserve “stress test,” which assesses whether banks were capable of absorbing losses during stressful conditions while still meeting obligations to creditors and counterparties and continuing to be able to lend to households and businesses.

But Trump’s regulatory rollback raised the threshold for enhanced regulatory standards from $50 billion to $250 billion, exempting 25 of the 38 largest banks in the country from stronger capital and liquidity rules, enhanced risk management standards, living-will requirements and some stress testing requirements, according to the Center for American Progress.

SVB might have managed its interest rate risks better had parts of the Dodd-Frank financial-regulatory package not been rolled back under Trump, some banking experts told the New York Times. But even during the passage of Dodd-Frank, Republicans “fought tooth and nail to try to block any kind of Wall Street reform even in the aftermath of the biggest financial crisis in a generation,” said Jeremy Funk, a spokesperson for Accountable.US.

“The reason why is because the Republicans largely take tens and millions of dollars from Wall Street interests, big banks,[the] financial industry generally, and they don’t want any kind of oversight whatsoever,” Funk said.

Leading up to the passage of the rollback, the banking industry aggressively lobbied to water down Dodd-Frank. SVB CEO and President Greg Becker “personally led” the bank’s $500,000 lobbying efforts to reduce financial regulations on capital requirements and stress tests, according to the Accountable.US report.

Congressional Republicans, who pushed to pass the bill, even received payments from SVB’s Political Action Committee.

House Financial Services Chair Patrick McHenry, who called the bill “a win for consumers” and “an important first step to undo Dodd Frank,” received at least $10,000 from SVB’s PAC from 2015 to 2022.

Upon the bill’s passage, McHenry said Dodd-Frank created “onerous regulatory burden[s]” on regional banks “that were not part of the financial crisis and did not need the new level of regulation.”

His efforts to push back against common sense regulation within the Dodd-Frank bill are still ongoing, noted Liz Zelnick, director of economic security and corporate power at Accountable.US.

McHenry has pushed back against “any kind of federal oversight of the financial system,” she added, referring to his efforts to defund the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and railing against capital requirements.

During a March 2023 House Financial Services hearing with Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, several Republicans, including McHenry, Rep. Frank Lucas, R-Okla., and Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, suggested that increased Fed oversight would “increase borrowing costs,” citing concerns that Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michael Barr was unfairly looking at capital requirement tests.

“These are the very things that if SVB and Signature Bank had in place could have prevented this kind of meltdown,” Zelnick said.


Other lawmakers like Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, R-Mo., and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., who worked to pass the bill, also received donations from SVB’s PAC.

In May 2018, Luetkemeyer said the legislation would “provide relief to community financial institutions and American borrowers.” He collected $3,000 in donations from SVB’s PAC.

Scott, who is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs and an original cosponsor of the bill, received $3,700 from SVB’s PAC.

“Despite what’s just happened, the dust is still settling here, [Republicans] want to go further,” Funk said. “They want to continue to defang and get rid of Dodd-Frank… and let the financial industry write their own rules with no oversight. It is scary that even amid a crisis right now, they are completely undeterred and want to keep pushing for more deregulation. And again, that is because they’re so deep in the pocket of the financial industry, they don’t care what the consequences are for consumers and the economy at large.”

In the lead-up to the collapses of SVB and Signature Bank, Republican lawmakers continued railing against capital requirements and the Dodd-Frank regulatory framework enforced on banks, the Accountable.US report pointed out.

Republican senators led by Scott sent a letter to the Federal Reserve urging it to be mindful in reviewing bank capital requirements that could “have a chilling effect” on the banking sector.

Following SVB’s collapse, Republicans doubled down on their views that their regulation bill was still appropriate.

McHenry blamed Twitter for “fuel[ing]” Silicon Valley’s bank run.

“At this time, it is important to remain levelheaded and look at the facts—not speculation—when assessing the right path forward,” he said.

Sen. Kevin Cramer, who signed onto the Senate letter to the Fed, also defended the rollback, saying that he doesn’t think “smaller banks need more oversight and regulation.”

Rep. Ann Wagner, R-Mo., said “‘this is not a systemic issue and I have confidence in our banking and financial system,'” telling The Kansas City Star she was working with regulators and industry, including the Missouri Bankers Association.

A spokesperson for Scott stood by the letter Scott wrote and said in a statement to Yahoo Finance on Monday that “capital must continuously be scrutinized to ensure it is risk based and is tailored to the bank’s size, scope, and activities. What’s happening with Silicon Valley Bank highlights why we cannot have a one-size-fits-all approach.”

Despite receiving warnings from consumer advocates, including Accountable.US, that removing Dodd-Frank safeguards would invite the same kind of risky behavior that led to the financial crisis, the rollback still passed with unanimous Republican support after several members collected donations from the financial industry.

“What we just saw last week was the predictable result of the rollback in 2018,” Funk said. “You remove the critical piece of oversight and it slipped through the cracks and it caused this collapse.”

Read More

Tags: politicsrepublicanrepublicans

FREE Digital Newspaper Subscription!
Sign up for your free digital subscription. The FREE Cape Cod News

Unsubscribe
FREE Cape Cod News

FREE Cape Cod News

Free Cape Cod News is what's happening in the Cape Cod, U.S and World & what people are talking about right now. Local newspaper. Stay in the know. Subscribe to get notified about our latest news.

Related Posts

Balanced budget takes back seat to paring spending to ‘22 levels at GOP retreat thumbnail
News

Balanced budget takes back seat to paring spending to ‘22 levels at GOP retreat

by FREE Cape Cod News
March 21, 2023
A potential Trump indictment is a sideshow gift to the Biden family thumbnail
News

A potential Trump indictment is a sideshow gift to the Biden family

by FREE Cape Cod News
March 21, 2023
Alaska oil drilling protesters disrupt White House climate adviser appearance thumbnail
News

Alaska oil drilling protesters disrupt White House climate adviser appearance

by FREE Cape Cod News
March 21, 2023
Biden vetoes Republican effort to overturn socially conscious retirement rule thumbnail
News

Biden vetoes Republican effort to overturn socially conscious retirement rule

by FREE Cape Cod News
March 21, 2023
Load More
Please login to join discussion

Follow Us on Twitter

FREE Cape Cod News - Your source for local Cape Cod news, latest breaking U.S. and World news. Every day, all day. Subscribe for your favorite categories.

  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest
Balanced budget takes back seat to paring spending to ‘22 levels at GOP retreat thumbnail

Balanced budget takes back seat to paring spending to ‘22 levels at GOP retreat

March 21, 2023
What is the weather like in Cape Cod in September. FREE Cape Cod News.

What is the weather like in Cape Cod in September?

September 1, 2020
Witches Paddle Parade on Town Cove in Orleans Cape Cod

Witches Paddle Parade on Town Cove in Orleans Cape Cod

October 4, 2020
Balanced budget takes back seat to paring spending to ‘22 levels at GOP retreat thumbnail

Balanced budget takes back seat to paring spending to ‘22 levels at GOP retreat

March 21, 2023
A potential Trump indictment is a sideshow gift to the Biden family thumbnail

A potential Trump indictment is a sideshow gift to the Biden family

March 21, 2023
Alaska oil drilling protesters disrupt White House climate adviser appearance thumbnail

Alaska oil drilling protesters disrupt White House climate adviser appearance

March 21, 2023

FREE Cape Cod News On Twitter

Today’s News

  • Balanced budget takes back seat to paring spending to ‘22 levels at GOP retreat March 21, 2023
  • A potential Trump indictment is a sideshow gift to the Biden family March 21, 2023
  • Alaska oil drilling protesters disrupt White House climate adviser appearance March 21, 2023
  • Biden vetoes Republican effort to overturn socially conscious retirement rule March 21, 2023
  • Here’s How Gasoline Prices Fared Under The Last Four Presidents March 20, 2023
FREE Cape Cod News

Copyright © 2022 Free Cape Cod News

Navigate Site

  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
  • Donate

Follow Us

No Result
View All Result
  • FREE Cape Cod News
  • News
    • News
    • Cape Cod News
    • Massachusetts
    • Breaking News
    • Cape Cod Weather
    • Storm Watch
    • Environment
  • Politics
    • democrats
    • republicans
  • Business
    • business
    • cryptocurrency
    • economy
    • money
    • Real Estate
    • Tech
  • World
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Photos
    • Orleans
    • Eastham
    • Wellfleet
    • Truro
    • Provincetown
    • Brewster
    • Chatham
  • Videos
  • Login
  • Sign Up

Copyright © 2022 Free Cape Cod News

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password? Sign Up

Create New Account!

Fill the forms below to register

All fields are required. Log In

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In

Add New Playlist