House Financial Services Committee Oversight Plan for Financial Regulation (with Lofchie Comment)

The House Financial Services Committee released Chairman Hensarling’s proposed oversight plan of the Committee on Financial Services for the 113th Congress. The document includes areas in which the Committee and its subcommittees expect to conduct oversight during this Congress. The plan addresses the laws, programs, and agencies within the Committee's jurisdiction, particularly the implementation of Dodd-Frank.

Lofchie Comment: It doesn’t take too much effort to see how the Committee on Financial Services can conclude that Dodd-Frank is materially damaging to the economy. Likewise it does not take much effort to see that any criticism, however well justified, will be dismissed as partisan. There simply has to be a way to create a critique of Dodd-Frank that is sufficiently credible for Congress and the regulators so that the problems of the statute can be addressed.Question No. 1: How do you create a credible process for proposing and testing hypotheses of the effect of Dodd-Frank and the implementing regulation on the soundness and growth of the economy? If there is not an answer to that question, I don't know whether the rest of it matters.

Click here to view 21 page plan in full (links externally to Financial Services Committee website).See also: Memo to Committee Members Regarding Meeting to Adopt the Committee's Oversight Plan for the 113th Congress.