Seven years after its launch in 2010, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act has done nothing for American taxpayers besides provide 2,300 pages of impulsive and deceiving legislation. This disaster of a law has unfairly blanketed our entire financial system with more than 400 overreaching and costly mandates.
Dodd-Frank was another ploy thought up by the Democrat-controlled Congress that was signed into law by President Obama in 2010. This failure, at best, was a Band-Aid disguised as the most significant piece of financial legislation of its time following the Great Recession. While there are many who argue that the financial collapse in 2008 was caused by lack of regulation, overregulation has made it almost impossible for small businesses to thrive.
The economic crisis our nation faced was alarming, and a much needed wake-up call for Americans. At the time, it was understandable for hardworking taxpayers to want to completely gut the system and reconstruct it from scratch. However, that is where this reform went terribly wrong. In order to restore our country to its best state, we needed to rebuild from the bottom-up, not the top-down. Dodd-Frank’s one-size-fits-all regulations do not work and only hurt one person, the consumer.
As a small business owner for most of my life, I remember what it was like 10 years ago; before and after our nation’s economic crisis. We did not have to worry about taxpayer-funded bailouts and crippling community financial institutions. The Obama Administration promised options, however, what we got was mass consolidations and closures.
Fortunately, I am hopeful that this year, the seventh year since the inception of Dodd-Frank, will be the last year. My colleagues and I on the House Committee on Financial Services successfully passed the Financial CHOICE Act in June of this year. The CHOICE Act will strengthen our financial regulatory system, and ultimately, the American economy.
The time for Dodd-Frank has come and gone. The past seven years have taught us that overregulation can be just as harmful as a lack of regulation. It is time we prioritize our hardworking American taxpayers and provide them with options, which is the Financial CHOICE Act.