Michael Bloomberg is leaning to the left with a new plan to regulate the financial industry that includes a financial transactions tax, a toughening of banking regulations, and a new Justice Department team to fight corporate crime.
“Mike will restore and strengthen key measures taken in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse that Donald Trump has worked to eliminate,” Bloomberg’s new financial reform plan says.
“He will restore critical consumer protections overturned by the Trump administration — including rules to rein in payday lending, ensuring investment advice prioritizes people’s best interests, and preserving customers’ right to sue financial institutions,” the Democratic presidential candidate’s website says.
The former New York City mayor would require financial institutions to monitor their risk exposure better, deter financial crimes through a dedicated corporate crime group within the Justice Department, and strengthen the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a consumer agency thought up by then-Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren and enacted in the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law signed by President Barack Obama, with more funding and expanded jurisdiction.
Bloomberg’s proposal, though, doesn’t go as far as the plans outlined by his rivals, Warren and Bernie Sanders.
Sanders, for example, wants to break up big banks and allow every post office to offer basic banking services, providing an alternative to regular commercial banks. Warren has said she wants to completely overhaul the private equity industry, stop “Wall Street looting,” and “fundamentally transform the financial sector’s role in our economy.”
A key part of his proposal will be strengthening banking regulations such as the Volcker Rule, a crucial part of the Dodd-Frank law that restricts U.S. banks from making certain speculative investments with deposits insured by taxpayers.
Through the new plan, Bloomberg will also introduce a 0.1% tax on all financial transactions to raise money to address wealth inequality and support measures to curb predatory behavior.
Bloomberg’s financial transactions tax is similar to the one New York Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez supported as legislation in the House of Representatives last year.
Bloomberg’s plan would allow competition in the finance industry to occur by creating a “regulatory sandbox” for startups to test concepts and by giving a clear regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies to exist.
