Obama Administration Rails Against GOP Bill to Deregulate Wall Street
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration on Wednesday came out swinging against a bill that would hold funding for bank regulators hostage by tying it to the rollback of key financial rules and consumer protections.
What’s left of their funding, that is. In addition to attaching a grab-bag of bank deregulation to agency budgets, the Republican-backed bill would also make deep cuts to tax evasion enforcement at the Internal Revenue Service, and lock in budget cuts from sequestration at agencies overseeing risky Wall Street trading. The bill would also undermine the Federal Communications Commission’s new net neutrality rules.
“The inclusion of these provisions threatens to undermine an orderly appropriations process,” Office of Management and Budget Director Shaun Donovan warned in a letter to Senate Appropriations Chairman Thad Cochran (R-Miss.).
Donovan’s letter reflects this year’s more proactive Obama administration response to GOP budgeting, aimed at fighting off ideological riders and deep funding cuts. Last year, Republicans successfully embedded a subsidy for Wall Street derivatives trading into a budget deal the president signed into law. By sending early letters offering detailed objections to GOP plans, the White House hopes to steer final government funding negotiations in a direction more favorable to Democratic priorities, according to an administration official.
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