Get the Facts: The Financial CHOICE Act
This week, the House will vote on the Financial CHOICE Act, the Republican plan to replace the Dodd-Frank Act and protect the financial futures of Americans. This legislative overhaul prioritizes Main Street – farmers, small business owners, and middle-income families – over Wall Street.
The Financial CHOICE Act – creating hope and opportunity for consumers, investors, and entrepreneurs.
The Financial CHOICE Act will:
- End taxpayer-funded bailouts once and for all and ensure no company remains “too big to fail.”
- Repeal Dodd-Frank’s authority to designate firms as “too big to fail.”
- Repeal Dodd-Frank’s authority to bailout large financial institutions and replace it with a new chapter of the Bankruptcy code.
- Hold Wall Street accountable with the toughest penalties in history for fraud and deception.
- Impose enhanced penalties for Wall Street fraud and self-dealing and promote greater transparency and accountability in the civil enforcement process.
- Increase the maximum criminal fines for individuals and firms that engage in insider trading and other corrupt practices.
- Reclaim power from the administrative state and give it back to the American people and their representatives.
- Fund all financial regulators through the congressional appropriations process to ensure great accountability and oversight.
- Require all financial regulators conduct a detailed cost-benefit analysis of all proposed and final regulations as well as retrospective reviews of regulation every five years.
- Subject all financial regulatory agencies to the REINS Act and its requirement that Congress approve all major regulations.
- Institute significant due-process protections for every American who feels that he or she has been the victim of a government shakedown.
- Demand greater accountability and transparency from the Federal Reserve.
- Rein in the rogue Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to empower all Americans to achieve financial independence.
- Restructure the unconstitutional and unaccountable CFPB as an Executive Branch agency, the Consumer Law Enforcement Agency, with a single director removable by the President at will.
- Provide accountability by subjecting the agency to Congressional oversight and the normal Congressional appropriations process.
- Remove the agency’s opaque and ill-defined ability to determine which financial products and services Americans can and cannot have.
- Require the Agency obtain permission before collecting consumers’ personally identifiable information.
- Transform the Agency into a true “cop on the beat” responsible for only enforcing the enumerated consumer protection laws.
- Unleash opportunities for Main Street small businesses, innovators, and job creators by eliminating onerous Washington regulations that are stifling access to credit and capital.
- Provide regulatory relief from the most onerous regulations of the Dodd-Frank Act for well-capitalized banks and credit unions.
- Enhance our capital markets and promote a securities regulatory regime that acknowledges the differences between small, private, and start-up companies and well-established public companies by incorporating two-dozen capital formation bills to increase access to capital.
- Remove Dodd-Frank’s one size fits all regulatory approach that has harmed small banks by incorporating almost two dozen regulatory relief bills for community financial institutions.
- Repeal the Department of Labor’s fiduciary rule – which imposes new costs and limits choices for American investors and retirees.
What is Dodd-Frank?
The Dodd-Frank Act is a 2,300-page rewrite of America’s financial laws passed by Washington Democrats in 2010 as a misguided response to the housing collapse and financial crisis of 2007-08.
Why do we need to replace Dodd-Frank?
At the time of its passage, Democrats promised Dodd-Frank would lift the economy, end taxpayer-funded bailouts, make the financial system safer, and protect consumers.
In reality, we saw the slowest and weakest economic recovery in 70 years, Wall Street bailouts enshrined into law, the creation of the most unaccountable government agency in U.S. history, big banks grow bigger, and community financial institutions being choked out all while banks fees and mortgage rates increased for Main Street. In fact, we lose one community bank or credit union every day on average, making it more difficult for the individuals, like farmers, small business owners, and families, who rely on these small institutions.
What Wall Street thinks about Dodd-Frank:
“We will be among the biggest beneficiaries” of Dodd-Frank.
- Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein
“I’m not a fan of getting rid of Dodd-Frank.”
- Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman
Dodd-Frank helps JPMorgan Chase build a “bigger moat” against the competition.
- JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon
“In progressive lore, giant banks hate the 2010 Dodd-Frank law and would like nothing more than to return to a regulatory wild west. So why has it been so hard since the Republican election sweep to find a Wall Street CEO who favors the repeal of Dodd-Frank?”
- The Wall Street Journal; 12/12/2016
“Goldman Sachs Group Inc….is poised to gain market share as pressure from regulators drives competitors to scale back.”
- Bloomberg; 4/23/2014
