Republicans propose cutting the budget of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission by one third. This is the agency that is supposed to be regulating the shadow-banking "derivatives" industry that got us all into such terrible trouble.
You know, the same reason why everyone is clamoring about austerity to begin with.
Though the point has been iterated ad nauseum, here it is again: you can't have good government if you starve it to death and outsource the rest. Or, in the words of a CFTC commissioner:
The process “will mean nothing, squat, diddly, if we don’t get the resources to do the job,” he said. “If we get cut, we’re going to be in a world of hurt.”It should be noted, too, that the CFTC still has a reputation of being a watchdog with some teeth, unlike the SEC, who was and remains wall street's BFF.
