Casting Wall Street as Victim, Trump Leads Deregulatory Charge
The public battle over who will serve as the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — with the White House trying to install
Mick Mulvaney, a staunch opponent of the agency — is the most recent example of the banker-friendly approach that has gripped Washington.
Less visible are the subtle but steady efforts at the White House, in federal agencies
and on Capitol Hill to lessen the regulatory burden on banks and financial firms since President Trump took office.
“The fear is that this administration will go back on all of the promises
that it made on the campaign trail to look out for the little guy and will roll back all of the protections that were put in place after the 2008 economic collapse,” said Karl Frisch, executive director of Allied Progress, a consumer group.
“There is an extraordinary need to rebalance regulation so safety
and soundness and business freedom are better aligned,” said Thomas Vartanian, a bank regulatory attorney who has been considered for several positions in the Trump administration.
A decade after the financial crisis, the federal government is easing up its policing of Wall Street
and the banking industry, even without actually repealing broad swaths of regulation.
The changes are the result of a combination of forces: business-friendly appointments by the president, a lack of financial
and personnel resources at many federal agencies, minute changes in rules imposed by regulators and a relaxation in how bank examiners supervise large institutions.
And some of the recent regulatory changes have won support not only from banks
but from consumer groups and traditional supporters of staunch regulation.