In December, the House passed a bill that would eliminate that threshold and substitute language giving the FSOC nonmonetary, somewhat subjective guidelines it could use to determine whether the bank could “threaten the financial stability of the United States.” The bill (H.R. 6392) passed the House by a vote of 254-161, so it had some Democratic support. It was unclear whether President Obama would have vetoed it had the bill passed the Senate during the lame duck session in 2016. Now with the Trump administration in place, it will very likely pass. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce strongly backs the bill because it thinks the ironclad $50 billion threshold arbitrarily catches regional and community banks, which play a vital role in providing liquidity and financing to Main Street businesses.
February 2017
