Today, the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Financial Services Committee is debating the possible costs of implementing the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.  The legislation was crafted as a response to the financial crisis which has cost nearly 10 million American jobs and over $10 trillion in household wealth, and has led to average lost wages of more than $3,000 per household. 

Congressman Barney Frank, Ranking Member of the Full Committee, released the following statement in order to provide a context for today’s proceedings.

“The press has reported on a yet-to-be-released study by the Government Accountability Office stating that it will cost up to $2.9 billion over five years to implement the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.”

“When the details of the report are made public, it will be important to put the cost analysis in proper perspective – there would be absolutely no cost to taxpayers if Republicans had not succeeded in stripping the funding mechanism from the bill during the conference committee.”

“I and other Democrats proposed to pay for implementation of the legislation by placing a levy on financial institutions with assets greater than $50 billion and on hedge funds with assets greater than $10 billion.  Many of these institutions benefited greatly from government intervention during the crisis and they will benefit in the future from the stability the law will provide to the markets.  American taxpayers, many of whom were significantly harmed by the financial crisis, would have shouldered none of the burden for implementing the legislation.”

“During the conference committee in June, Senate Republicans threatened to block the entire bill if the language assessing a fee on these large financial institutions was not removed.  There was a great deal of coverage of this in the press -- negotiations on the entire bill hinged on this single point.  When the Republicans refused to back down, we were forced to remove the funding language from the bill, effectively shifting the cost for implementation from the nation’s largest financial institutions to American taxpayers.”

“This was a dramatic story when it occurred last summer and I regret that I could not change the outcome then.  When the GAO report on the costs of implementing the Wall Street Reform Act is released it will be especially important to remember that these costs could have been completely avoided.”