McConnell: Cutting funds for Dodd-Frank regulatory agencies good for economy

Cutting agency budgets charged with implementing the Dodd-Frank financial reform law would be for the good of the country, said Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) on Wednesday morning.

“The less we fund those agencies, the better America will be,” he said at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, according to the Financial Times. “I think anything we can do to slow down, deter or impede their ability to engage in this oppressive overregulation, which is freezing up our economy, would be good for our country.”

{mosads}The lawmaker lit into the Wall Street reform law, calling it the “second worst” bill he had ever seen passed by Congress during his decades-long tenure — the healthcare reform law was the only one worse. He wholeheartedly endorsed efforts to stifle the financial market overhaul by cutting the budgets of the agencies charged with implementing it.

Regulators are scrambling to write rules implementing numerous provisions of Dodd-Frank, and are doing so on budgets enacted before the sweeping reform was signed into law.

Heads of agencies like the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have implored Congress for budget boosts to not only write the rules, but also have the manpower and resources to implement them going forward.

However, after Republicans took control of the House, those dollars have been hard to come by. The president has proposed major budget hikes for both of those agencies, but Republicans have actually pushed to cut their budgets.