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AFR Statement: Two Key Democrats Get Behind a Wall Street Transaction Tax

A senior House Democrat, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), moved today to put the idea of a Wall Street transaction tax firmly on the table of the national policy debate. Rep. Van Hollen’s proposal – along with a swift statement of support from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) – is excellent news. AFR also strongly supports a second element of Van Hollen’s plan, which would sharply limit the tax deductability of corporate pay above $1 million.

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AFR Letter: Reject HR 185, the Regulatory Accountability Act

AFR sent a letter to members of Congress, urging them to oppose HR 185, the “Regulatory Accountability Act.” This legislation would hamstring agencies charged with the oversight of our largest banks by requiring them to comply with a host of additional bureaucratic and procedural requirements designed to make effective action virtually impossible.

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AFR in the News: Main Street Banks Play the Wall Street Lobbying Game (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)

“PNC, the nation’s 10th largest bank, hasn’t spent the past few years just building itself into a financial behemoth. Like many other banks, it’s built up political capital too. And last year, it spent some of that currency to help roll back a regulation [that] barred banks with federally insured deposits from engaging in certain potentially high-risk financial transactions… Swaps have legitimate uses, but ‘when things go wrong in this area, they go very very wrong,’ said Marcus Stanley [of] Americans for Financial Reform.”

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AFR in the News: Kicking Dodd-Frank in the Teeth (NY Times)

“We’re going to see repeated attempts to go in with seemingly technical changes that intimidate regulators and keep them from putting teeth in regulations,” predicted Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform… “If we return to the precrisis business as usual, where it’s routine for people to accommodate Wall Street on these technical changes, they’re just going to unravel the postcrisis regulation piece by piece.”

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AFR Letter: Oppose Regulatory Rollback in HR 26 (TRIA)

AFR sent a letter to members of Congress urging them to reject HR 26, the “Terrorism Risk Insurance Act.” This legislation contains the inclusion of an irrelevant provision that would weaken financial regulatory protections by banning the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) from any oversight of margin and collateral for derivatives transactions with commercial end users.

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AFR Letter: Preserve Financial Protections, Oppose HR 37

AFR sent a letter to members of Congress, urging them to oppose HR 37, “Promoting Job Creation and Reducing Small Business Burdens Act.” This legislation includes numerous changes that could have significant negative impacts on regulators ability to police the financial markets so that they function safely and transparently.

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AFR in the News: Banks Win More Time to Sell Private Equity Stakes (USA Today)

Americans for Financial Reform… called the Fed action disappointing and said it “raises serious questions about regulators’ intentions to properly enforce the Volcker Rule.” “Since proprietary trading can occur through the mechanism of external funds, the delay in divestment requirements for covered funds will greatly weaken the enforcement of other crucial parts of the Volcker Rule as well,” the organization said.