Patriotic Millionaire on House Rollback of Dodd-Frank: "Bipartisanship at Its Worst"

This afternoon, following the House vote to pass the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, a significant rollback on Dodd-Frank oversight requirements for large banks, the Chair of the Patriotic Millionaires and former managing director at BlackRock, Inc., Morris Pearl released the following statement:

"Dodd-Frank was put in place in the aftermath of a devastating financial crisis, caused by misbehavior at major banks, that cost millions of Americans their jobs and life savings. We should be strengthening regulations on major banks, not weakening them, but this bill takes a our financial system in a dangerous new direction. This rollback would free banks with assets less than $250 billion from critical oversight requirements in the name of 'helping out smaller community banks,' but if you think BB&T, American Express, and Keyback are small community banks, I have a bridge to sell you. This legislation is not about helping community banks, the economy, or consumers. It's is about one thing: profit for large banks.

The shareholders of these large banks are the only people who stand to get any true benefits from the passage of this legislation, all while the taxpayers have been signed up to take the risk because the banks are insured by the FDIC (meaning the American taxpayers). The government has a basic obligation on behalf of these taxpayers to supervise the banks and make sure they are not putting personal profits before legitimate taxpayer risk. It is reprehensible that our Congress has abdicated this responsibility in a clear move to cater to Wall Street.

33 Democrats in the House voted for this bill. This is bipartisanship at its worst - members of both parties coming together to bow down to their wealthy donors on Wall Street instead of protecting their constituents. 2008 was just a decade ago, have we already forgotten the lessons we learned?"