Reflections on Dodd-Frank, Two Years Later

Two years ago this week, the largest financial reform package in U.S. history became law: the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis under a highly partisan vote count (just three Republicans voted “yay” in the House of Representatives), the doorstopper law prescribes regulations on everything from derivatives and conflict minerals to the creation of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

To date, about 30 percent of Dodd-Frank rulemaking requirements have been met—generating a wealth of lobbying, commentary, and controversy along the way. Bookending sentiments on the law, President Barack Obama has called for even tougher reform in the future, while his Republican rival Governor Mitt Romney has vowed to get the act repealed.

Below is a roundup of what’s being said by those in the know about Dodd-Frank on its two-year anniversary:

The Namesakes

Former Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Connecticut), now chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, told the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners last month that he doesn’t actually like having his name on the bill, according to Accounting Today: “It’s not that I don’t want to have my name associated with it. I just think it personalizes these matters in a manner I’m not enamored of.”

That aside, Dodd also said that the law’s controversial whistleblower provisions produce tips to the Securities and Exchange Commission that are “yielding significant benefits in developing enforcement cases.” Though he does fear the provisions will lack for funding in the future: “Those who don’t like regulations, those who don’t like the law, will basically starve it of funding.”

Speaking of money, Dodd-Frank’s other half, Representative Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts), told New York magazine earlier this year: “The biggest thing I would have changed was how you paid for it—that $20 billion that’s now on the taxpayers, not the banks. But we needed those Republican votes.”

The Regulators (Past and Present)