Treasury Report Calls for Sweeping Changes to Financial Rules<br />“By streamlining the regulatory system, we can make the U. S. capital markets a true source of<br />economic growth which will harness American ingenuity and allow small businesses to grow.”<br />Rob Nichols, chief executive of the American Bankers Association, called the Treasury recommendations “practical, reasonable and achievable.”<br />“Many of the recommendations in the report would make it easier to raise capital, meet the needs of bank customers operating domestically<br />and abroad, and focus regulatory processes on effective supervision without harming the economy,” Mr. Nichols said in a statement.<br />Mike Calhoun, the president of the Center for Responsible Lending, said he was skeptical of claims<br />that regulations stifle the economy, pointing to high profits and substantial share buybacks by banks as evidence that the institutions are “awash in cash these days.”<br />The Treasury report is “more strategic” than other efforts to scale back oversight,<br />but it is “still the wrong prescription for expanding the economy, and a dangerous one,” he said.<br />Both the June report and the one released on Friday — as well as two more expected in the coming months — originated from an executive order<br />that President Trump signed in February asking Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to reposition financial rules to better match the administration’s aims.<br />The Trump administration is again taking aim at the Dodd-Frank Act, releasing a Treasury Department report on Friday<br />that recommended a vast reworking of Wall Street rules adopted in response to the financial crisis.
