Wall Street lobbying
This December could be Wall Street’s best chance in a while to roll back financial regulation. Judging from the amount of money the industry has been spending on lobbying, it’s preparing for battle.
The catalyst is a deadline that President Barack Obama and Congress must meet: If they don’t agree on a $1.1 trillion spending bill by Dec. 11, the government may have to shut down. This provides lawmakers with an opportunity to tack riders onto the must-pass legislation, including some gifts to the financial industry that the White House has resisted.
On Wall Street’s wish list: delaying a fiduciary rule designed to make sure brokers offer older folks unconflicted advice, and limiting regulators’ power to subject large financial institutions to extra scrutiny.
The previous peak in Wall Street spending came in the last quarter of 2014, when banks exploited a similar last-minute government spending bill to kill an important piece of the Dodd-Frank financial-reform legislation.
Lobbying is not inherently evil. And some changes to financial regulation, particularly in the area of community banking, would make sense. Tacking Wall Street’s wishes onto other legislation without proper examination or debate, though, is no way to go about it.
This story was originally published November 18, 2015 at 5:33 PM with the headline "Wall Street lobbying."