Upon being sworn in for her third term in the House of Representatives, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) introduced legislation to repeal the Dodd-Frank financial reform act. On the day she introduced the legislation, she issued a statement. An excerpt:
I'm pleased to offer a full repeal of the job-killing Dodd-Frank financial regulatory bill. Dodd-Frank grossly expanded the federal government beyond its jurisdictional boundaries. It gave Washington bureaucrats the power to interpret and enforce the legislation with little oversight.
Dodd-Frank also failed to address the taxpayer-funded liabilities of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Real financial regulatory reform must deal with these lenders who were a leading cause of our economic recession. True reform must also end the bailout mindset that was perpetuated by the last Congress. I am proud to work towards repeal of Dodd-Frank because Congress must protect the taxpayers, instead of handing out favors to Wall Street.
Later in the day, Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) issued a statement, which contained the following:
Michele Bachmann, the Club for Growth and others in the right-wing coalition have now made their agenda for the financial sector very clear: they yearn to return to the thrilling days of yesteryear, so the loan arrangers can ride again-untrammeled by any rules restraining irresponsibility, excess, deception, and most of all, infinite leverage.
Their effort to repeal the new financial reform law reveals the hypocrisy of right-wing claims that they are concerned with ending uncertainty in the economy. Now that we have put in place a set of rules that allow financial markets to function but which also curb their excesses, Rep. Bachmann and her allies want to reintroduce uncertainty.
