EDITORIAL: Revising Dodd-Frank: Some necessary neutering

June 20--While all eyes focused on the GOP effort to repeal and replace ObamaCare, another hodgepodge from the same Big Government Knows Best mindset was being wound down in Congress.

By a vote of 233-186, the House has moved to neuter the Obama administration's pit bull of economic dysfunction commonly known as the Dodd-Frank financial regulations. This watchdog intended to prevent another Great Recession has instead soiled the carpet and is incapable of being housebroken.

Following the House vote, the Treasury Department presented its own review of Dodd-Frank, which supports many of the GOP changes.

Rather than prevent another 2008 economic collapse, Dodd-Frank has given big banks (which Dems, themselves, blame for the recession) even more market concentration by tying up smaller, community banks in reams of red tape.

The GOP legislation allows banks to opt out of some regulations if they maintain certain levels of capital, establishes a new bankruptcy process minimizing taxpayer risk in bailing out financial institutions that are "too big to fail" and puts a leash on the litigation-happy Consumer Financial Protection Bureau of unelected bureaucrats.

Rather than serve as an effective watchdog, Dodd-Frank is a mangy mutt whose bark and bite are equally deleterious. Under the guise of "consumer protection," it extends the ham-handed reach of federal meddlers. At the very least, it must be fixed.

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