Has Dodd-Frank Helped Or Hurt The Economy?

Arguing about politics is an invitation to get drawn into an exchange of polemics, but economic analysis requires a more definite set of evaluations. That’s what makes financial regulation such a sticky subject on Capitol Hill. No matter the political persuasions, there seem to be statistics to back it up.

This week, the Dodd-Frank Act and Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) Consumer Financial Protection Bureau came under both praise and scrutiny from party leaders on both sides of the aisle, The Wall Street Journal reported. At campaign stops and during weekly addresses, figures from as high as President Barack Obama to as otherwise as Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus shared their respective pledges of protections for or campaigns to repeal the financial regulations that simultaneously are creating and killing jobs.

By WSJ’s account, the economy may not be in stellar shape; gross domestic product is expected to decline 0.4 percent in 2016, and even the White House has readjusted its estimates down by 0.7 percent.

Still, some don’t believe that peeling back regulation is the permanent solution to temporary recessions.

“Every year, like clockwork, big banks and their Republican allies in Congress try to roll back these protections and undermine the consumer watchdog, whose only job is to look out for you,” Sen. Warren said.