Need-To-Know Memo – National Journal
November 16, 2011

“REFORM ADVOCATES OUTRAGED OVER PROPOSED CFTC CUTS. Financial reform advocates are up in arms over the House-Senate conference ‘minibus’ appropriations bill that would slash roughly one-third of what President Obama requested to fund the Commodity Futures Trading Commission for 2012 to $205.3 million, raising questions about how it will be able to enforce new financial regulations. ‘This leaves the agency without the funding it needs to do its job and will make it impossible to implement key aspects of financial reform,’ said Lisa Donner, the executive director for Americans for Financial Reform, in a press release. Better Markets, a public interest non-profit that supports financial reform argues such cuts are reckless and raise the question of how much the next crisis will cost taxpayers and the economy. ‘Cutting those budgets and preventing [regulators] from doing their jobs all but guarantees another crisis,’ it said in a blog post. ‘The only question is when, not if, and then the question will be how big a bill will they stick the taxpayers with next time.’