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U.S. Congressman Hensarling Scheduled to Speak on Fifth Anniversary of Dodd-Frank

microphoneU.S. Congressman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) will speak out along with a panel of financial regulation experts on the need for financial reform at an American Enterprise Institute (AEI) Event in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, July 21 – the fifth anniversary of the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, according to an announcement from AEI.

In an event titled "Dodd-Frank's Unhappy Fifth Birthday," Hensarling, who is the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, will speak about where the country stands financially today and what reforms are needed for the country to experience robust economic growth.

A panel of experts will discuss why reform is necessary and where it is most urgent, preceding Hensarling's remarks. The panel will include Mark Calabria of the Cato Institute; Chris Iacovella of Bloomberg LP; Alex J. Pollock of AEI; and J.W. Verret of Mercatus Center.

In mid-May, the Financial Services Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations held a hearing entitled "The Dodd-Frank Act and Regulatory Overreach" to discuss the controversial reform legislation that was enacted in 2010 in the wake of the financial crisis. The Subcommittee determined at that hearing that the 2008 crisis was not caused by insufficient regulation of the private financial sector, particularly Wall Street, but rather the cause was government housing policies that pushed people into buying homes they could not afford.

AEI described Dodd-Frank as legislation that "may be the most expansive and restrictive financial-services regulation since the New Deal, giving enormous new authority to the Federal Reserve, Financial Stability Oversight Council, and Consumer Financial Protection Board."

One of the witnesses at that House Subcommittee hearing in May, Hester Peirce, Director of the Financial Group at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, pointed out that the drafters of Dodd-Frank were working without full information since a report on the cause of the financial crisis was not issued by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission until six months after Dodd-Frank was passed into law. Peirce said in her testimony that because of accumulating failures and bailouts from the financial crisis that called for quick financial reform, Dodd-Frank was "the product of fear and fury, not careful analysis."

Since the passage of Dodd-Frank five years ago, Republicans have made many attempts to chip away at the law. In January, a bill passed with some Democratic support in the House that delays the implementation of part of the "Volcker Rule," a key piece of Dodd-Frank that limits risky trading by financial institutions by giving financial firms an additional two years (until 2019) to sell off their collateralized loan obligations, or bundled debt.

Click here to watch the July 21 event live online. The event will be from 1 to 3 p.m. Eastern time.

About Author: Brian Honea

Brian Honea's writing and editing career spans nearly two decades across many forms of media. He served as sports editor for two suburban newspaper chains in the DFW area and has freelanced for such publications as the Yahoo! Contributor Network, Dallas Home Improvement magazine, and the Dallas Morning News. He has written four non-fiction sports books, the latest of which, The Life of Coach Chuck Curtis, was published by the TCU Press in December 2014. A lifelong Texan, Brian received his master's degree from Amberton University in Garland.
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