Democrats like to talk about #WhatsAtStake and being #ForThePeople. Want to know what’s at stake? A booming economy, safer communities, and a strong military.
When everyday Americans look at their bigger paychecks or the “now hiring” signs in their hometowns, they have Republicans to thank for that. What Americans do have Democrats to thank for is the destruction of community banks across the country.
While they try to claim that Republicans are the supports of the 1% and big banks, one of the Democrat legacy bills, Dodd-Frank, did more to bolster big banks and destroy community banks than any other legislation in recent history.
The bailouts? The poor lending practices? Dodd-Frank was supposed to make that all a thing of the past. The goal was to protect Americans from bailouts, financial fraud, and abusive banking. It was going to be tough on Wall Street, and give Main Street a fighting chance against the 1%. To understand the damage Dodd-Frank has done, think of those goals I just listed…then do the exact opposite.
Instead of being tough on Wall Street, Dodd-Frank put many on Main Street out of business. Community banks and credit unions don’t have the resources to navigate excessive regulations, so they become “too small to succeed.” It had gotten so bad by the time President Trump came into office that we were losing an average of one community bank or credit union every single day. And without this competition, big banks got even bigger than they were before. Oops!
It also created a rogue agency, ironically called the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which had a virtually unlimited money supply and pumped out regulations that hurt consumers — without any oversight.
Democrats put Dodd-Frank in place, and after seeing the damage it did, most voted AGAINST repealing it. That’s what’s at stake.
Until tax reform and regulatory relief, we had the slowest, weakest economic recovery in 70 years. Dodd-Frank made having access to banking services more difficult, as fewer and fewer banks offered free checking and the minimum balances to open an account continued to grow.
While the more comprehensive Financial CHOICE Act is getting held up by Democrats in the Senate, President Trump did sign another Republican-led Dodd-Frank reform bill, the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act into law in May. It protects community banks and credit unions from regulations that were never meant to be applied to them in the first place.