Four Years of Dodd-Frank Damage

Dodd-Frank is a non-cure that's proving to be far worse than the disease. It must be repealed.

Dodd-Frank is a non-cure that's proving to be far worse than the disease. It must be repealed. -- RDM

by Peter Wallison
The Wall Street Journal
July 21, 2014

When the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act took effect on July 21, 2010, it immediately caused a sharp partisan division. This staggeringly large legislation—2,300 pages—passed the House without a single Republican vote and received only three GOP votes in the Senate. Republicans saw the bill as ObamaCare for the financial system, a vast and unnecessary expansion of the regulatory state.

Four years later, Dodd-Frank's pernicious effects have shown that the law's critics were, if anything, too kind. Dodd-Frank has already overwhelmed the regulatory system, stifled the financial industry and impaired economic growth.

According to the law firm Davis, Polk & Wardell's progress report, Dodd-Frank is severely taxing the regulatory agencies that are supposed to implement it. As of July 18, only 208 of the 398 regulatio…