2016-11-10wsj.com

President-elect Donald Trump's transition team promised to dismantle the 2010 Dodd-Frank law, signaling the incoming administration will seek to remake the way the U.S. oversees the financial sector.

The brief note on Mr. Trump's new website marked the first time since Tuesday's election that the president-elect addressed financial regulatory policy. The statement was consistent with Mr. Trump's campaign trail rhetoric, blaming the Obama administration's signature response to the financial crisis for a tepid economy and promising to "replace it with new policies to encourage economic growth and job creation," but providing few details.

Whether Mr. Trump can keep that promise, and how far those changes will reach, depends in large part on what happens in Congress. Financial regulation hasn't been mentioned by Mr. Trump as something on the White House agenda during his first 100 days in office. Privately, Republicans are tempering expectations. "I don't think that you're going to see major efforts to throw out Dodd-Frank wholesale," said a person who has advised the Trump campaign on regulatory policy.

...

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R., Texas) last year laid out a blueprint for replacing Dodd​-Frank​, and ​ many observers view ​that ​as a starting point. It is built around a trade-off: Banks can free themselves from various regulations, such as tough stress testing, so long as they maintain capital equal to at least 10% of total assets and high ratings from the regulator. That would immediately help many small, locally​ focused banks, but not necessarily megabanks with sprawling international operations.

This is an interesting twist, since Trump didn't push anything like this on the campaign, so doesn't "need" to deliver in this area. Does he genuinely think this will help Main Street, or is he throwing a sop to Wall Street to get the rich and powerful more in his corner?

Frankly, to us, Hensarling's sketch of a Dodd-Frank replacement doesn't sound like a horrible idea (though the devil could very well be in the details of any ultimate solution).



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