Dodd-Frank Has Held Down the US Economy for Too Long

Carefree, Arizona—population 3,363—is 2,400 miles from Wall Street. But that’s still not far enough away to escape the harm caused by Democrats’ supposed “Wall Street reform” known as the Dodd-Frank Act, which was signed into law seven years ago this month. According to a local news report, a proposed housing project in Carefree was terminated because “the Dodd-Frank Act and its overreaching federal regulations” prevented the developer from obtaining financing.

In truth, citizens of every American community are losing economic opportunities due to Dodd-Frank. According to the Mercatus Center, Dodd-Frank places greater burdens on our business enterprises than all other Obama-era regulations combined. Arguably, it is the prime contributor to our economy’s halting growth since the last recession ended. It has been particularly harmful to small businesses.

Even the former director of President Barack Obama’s Small Business Administration lamented that Dodd-Frank’s regulatory burdens on community banks “are getting in the way of their ability to make small business loans.” Thanks to Dodd-Frank, too many garages are full of old cars instead of new startup companies. Dodd-Frank harms the very consumers Democrats claim to help. University of Maryland researchers concluded Dodd-Frank “triggered a substantial redistribution of credit from middle-class households to wealthy households.”

Since Dodd-Frank became law, the share of banks offering free checking has fallen by half, average monthly fees have tripled, and the ranks of the unbanked and underbanked have increased by 3 million. When it comes to many financial products, consumers are paying more and getting less. Dodd-Frank also promised to end taxpayer bailouts, but cynically codified them into law instead. The law promised to make our financial system more stable, yet today the big banks are even bigger, the small banks are fewer, and corporate bond markets are seeing historic levels of illiquidity and volatility.

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