Former Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, the Dodd in the Dodd-Frank Act, said today the pandemic is a chance to get things done that should have been done years ago.
He noted a restructuring of the nation’s financial architecture had been talked about for a long time before Dodd-Frank because Congress needs a crisis to act.
In the same vein, the retired Connecticut Democratic Senator said the pandemic and Black Lives Matter should be used as spurs to improve the nation’s health care system and to do a lot of work that needs to be done to better serve minority communities.
He pointed out that the current crises have shown redlining is a national, rather that strictly local concern.
Going into other issues where the time is ripe for Congressional action, Dodd said:” A virus can be a systemic risk, climate change can be a systemic risk.”
A major focus of the Dodd-Frank Act was to give tools to fight systemic risk throughout the economy heighted by actions from interconnected financial institutions.
Looking at the pandemic, Dodd said Dodd-Frank has lessened the pain: “We would have collapsed economically (without it). I don’t know anyone who disagrees. We would be in such a deep hole I am not sure we could get out of it.”
He was joined in that assessment by former President Barack Obama who was in power when Dodd-Frank was enacted:
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“So far Dodd-Frank has helped pandemic from spiraling from a Financial Crisis II.”
The former senator and former president spoke at a webinar on the 10th anniversary of the signing of Dodd-Frank sponsored by Better Markets, an advocacy group established to promote the implementation of the law.
Dodd said the legislation did not fix all the problems in the financial system, but it was not intended to.
He said an indication of the strength of the legislation is that there has never been an attempt by Republicans to repeal it as there has been for the Affordable Care Act.
“The heart of what we did 10 years is the law of the land,” said the former Senator.
Source: forbes.com
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