Former President Barack Obama’s Wall Street reform law is even worse than Obamacare, a top Senate Republican said Monday.
“I think it’s worse than Obamacare. I think it’s one of the worst bills that’s ever been passed through Congress,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, in an interview with Bloomberg TV.
Asked if there were any provisions of the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law worth saving, the Republican responded “not in my eyes.”
Many congressional Republicans have stopped short of calling for a full repeal of the law, including the House lawmakers working on a legislative package that would replace the law with a system that would allow banks to opt out of rules if they maintain significantly higher capital levels.
Hatch has his hands full as the chairman of a panel that will be tasked with managing Republican efforts to reform the tax code as well as Obamacare.
But on Monday he was busier trying to confirm Steven Mnuchin to be treasury secretary, a position with oversight of financial markets.
The current regime of oversight and regulation has gone too far in stifling lending and penalizing banks, hurting economic growth, Hatch said.
“To treat all these banks like they’re a bunch of crooks and you have to watch everything they do is, I think, beyond the pale,” he said.
