Huntsman hits Romney, Obama on financial reform

“Today we can already see the outlines of the next financial crisis and bailouts. Mitt Romney admitted as much at last week’s debate in New Hampshire,” Huntsman writes in the op-ed. “While he gave lip service to opposing bailouts, when asked how we would avoid bailouts he offered no solutions other than implying he would participate in a bailout of Greece. The Obama and Romney plan appears to be to cross our fingers and hope no ‘too big to fail’ banks fail on their watch.”

Huntsman, who has struggled to gain traction in the GOP presidential contest while his rival Romney has remained comfortably at the top of polls, suggested a setting fee on banks once they reach a certain size. The fees could be used to cover any costs of bailing out the banks down the line.

{mosads}“Congress should explore reforms now being considered by the U.K. to make the unwinding of its biggest banks less risky for the broader economy,” Huntsman wrote.

“It could impose a fee on banks whose size exceeds a certain percentage of the GDP to cover the cost they would impose on taxpayers in a bailout, thus eliminating the implicit subsidy of their too-big-to-fail status.”

Huntsman also proposed changes to the Wall Street reform bill ushered in by Obama and a Democratic Congress, including the repeal of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

“Once too-big-to-fail is fixed, we could then more easily repeal the law’s unguided regulatory missiles, such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau,” Huntsman wrote.