Daniel Webster applauds passage of bill that would reverse Dodd-Frank regulations

The push for deregulation comes as Donald Trump's administration attempts to spur economic growth to an annual rate of 3 per cent. But it would take legislation to revamp the law - and that's far from a certain prospect. Despite having nothing to do with the financial crisis, community banks, their hundreds of employees and thousands of customers have felt the brunt of this law. It also exempts smaller banks from Dodd-Frank regulations and undermines the authority of Financial Stability Oversight Council.

The first version of the anti-Dodd-Frank legislation was introduced by Rep. Jeb Hensarling of Texas in 2016, and it was touted as a bill that would provide relief to financial institutions that have been, as many assert, overburdened by the 2010 Dodd-Frank regulations.

The bill includes measures that would allow cuts in regulatory requirements for banks and cut stress tests back from their current annual schedule and would scrap the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. No Democratic lawmakers supported the measure; only one Republican opposed it.

Senator Sherrod Brown, the Democrat who heads the banking committee in the Senate, has said he is open to loosening rules for smaller community banks.

The bill must still go to the Senate. "We are concerned about pieces of the Choice Act being taken up in the Senate".

House Republicans headed toward a vote June 8, 2017, on dismantling sweeping financial rules established under Obama that were created to head off economic meltdowns. If banks can lend more money, it will help the economy grow and create more jobs, the White House has said.

On Monday evening, the president tapped Joseph Otting, a former colleague of Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin at OneWest to run the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.

The Senate Banking Committee's top Democrat, Sherrod Brown of OH, has struck a more critical tone.

Trump and other Republicans have long complained that Dodd-Frank saddled business with burdensome regulations that stunted economic growth; Trump famously noted during the campaign that friends of his couldn't get loans, supposedly due to the minimal regulations put in place after the financial meltdown.

Sewell continued, "Between the home foreclosures, rising unemployment, and the families whose dreams were stripped away to pay for Wall Street's mistakes, it is hard to forget".

The bill purports to end "too-big-too-fail" by ending Title II of Dodd-Frank, which provided a pathway to resolve the failure of large financial institutions.

Attempts to weaken the consumer protection agency have drawn particular ire from Democrats. "The most important power of the legislature is the power of the purse".

The bill would take away the the Financial Stability Oversight Council's mandate to designate non-bank financial institutions and utilities as "systemically important", with those now designated as such being freed from the additional associated regulatory standards. The CFPB used those powers to fine Wells Fargo $100 million past year for opening up to two million accounts customers did not ask for or know about. The bill is meant to end bailouts, reduce financial restrictions, and restructure certain federal agencies.

Republicans have chafed at the existence of Dodd-Frank since it passed in 2010. "They promised us it would lift the economy. but instead we are still stymied in the weakest, slowest recovery in the post war era", Hensarling said during the House debate Thursday. "For the objective of making the financial system safer, you can do a lot more of that with less complex and less burdensome regulation", Kim Schoenholtz, director of the Center for Global Economy and Business at NYU's Stern School of Business, told CNBC. "#WrongChoiceAct", Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) tweeted.

Democrats said the Choice Act would return the country to the loose regulatory environment that existed prior to the financial crisis.