Senate Bill Sows Seeds of Next Financial Crisis

With Majority Leader Harry Reid’s announcement that Democrats have the 60 votes needed for final passage of the Dodd-Frank financial bill, we can take a moment and remember this as the moment Congress planted the seeds of the next financial crisis.

In choosing to ignore the actual causes of the financial crisis -- loose monetary policy, Fannie/Freddie, and never-ending efforts to expand homeownership -- and instead further expanding government guarantees behind financial risk-taking, Congress is eliminating whatever market discipline might have been left in the banking industry.  But we shouldn’t be surprised, since this administration and Congress have consistently chosen to ignore the real problems facing our country -- unemployment, perverse government incentives for risk-taking, massive fiscal imbalances -- and instead pursued an agenda of rewarding special interests and expanding government.

At least we’ll know what to call the next crisis: the Dodd-Frank Crash.