CEI has fought excessive regulation in the financial sector from laws such as Sarbanes-Oxley and Dodd-Frank. We have scored major bipartisan victories for deregulation. These include the Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act, signed by President Obama in 2012, that lifted or relaxed some of the biggest burdens preventing small and midsize firms from raising capital and going public; and the Economic Growth, Regulatory Relief, and Consumer Protection Act, signed by President Trump in 2018, that lifted some of Dodd-Frank’s crushing burden on community banks and credit unions. We continue to fight to remove regulatory barriers that limit choices and increase costs for entrepreneurs, investors, and consumers.
Banking and Finance Issue Areas
Featured Posts
Blog
Why can’t we just print more money?
Last week, I attended an event at a think tank where the conversation centered on the federal budget and national debt. At one…
Blog
Buy Now, Pay Later doesn’t mean pay more, owe more, and panic more
Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) has become a familiar way to pay for everything from discretionary purchases to everyday expenses. BNPL lets consumers divide…
News Release
Report analyzes and offers reforms to the current US-proxy advisory system
Today, the Competitive Enterprise Institute released a new report that analyzes and critiques the current US proxy-advisory system and offers strong reforms that…
Search Posts
Free Beacon
A Different Standard
Hans Bader, senior attorney and counsel for special projects at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which filed a brief in the St. Paul case, said…
Free Beacon
Eight States Join Challenge of Law That Regulates Financial Industry
The move comes more than four months after three other AGs joined the suit, which was originally filed in June by the State National Bank…
Free Beacon
Georgia joins lawsuit challenging Dodd-Frank
In addition to the community bank, original plaintiffs include the Competitive Enterprise Institute and the 60 Plus Association. Attorneys General from Michigan, Oklahoma, and South…
Legal Brief
Dodd-Frank Second Amended Complaint
News Release
Eight More States Join Constitutional Challenge to Dodd-Frank Act
WASHINGTON, D.C., February 13, 2013 – In an attempt to protect their pension funds, taxpayers and financial stability, the states of Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, Montana,…
Free Beacon
Left-Wing Groups Shape Dodd Frank
“That these anti-capitalist agendas are influencing the CFPB is especially troubling, because the CFPB lacks any form of accountability to American voters through Congress,” John…
Letters
Letter to Congress on Nomination of Richard Cordray to the CFPB
CEI and the 60 Plus Association sent a letter urging Congress to take time to consider the re-nomination of Richard Cordray to the CFPB, in…
Free Beacon
Behind the Consumer Confidence Crash
The Competitive Enterprise Institute and the 60 Plus Association are writing Congress “asking the Senate withhold the confirmation of [CFPB director nominee Richard] Cordray until…
Free Beacon
Groups ask Senate to withhold Cordray’s confirmation as CFPB director
The Competitive Enterprise Institute, along with a seniors advocacy group, has sent a letter to Congress asking the Senate to withhold Richard Cordray’s confirmation as…
Free Beacon
Value Destroyers Like Bernanke Fancy Themselves Magician Economists
Economics is not magic. Yet today, many prominent economists insist on pulling off an economic rabbit hat trick when they propose getting something for nothing.
Free Beacon
Plaintiffs from CFPB Suit Urge Cordray Confirmation Delay
The Competitive Enterprise Institute and the 60 Plus Association are urging the Senate to delay confirmation of Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection…
News Release
Spending Cuts Caused Economy to Contract? How About Regulatory Cliff
WASHINGTON, Jan. 30, 2013 — Today, the government reported the stunning news the U.S. economy actually contracted by .1 percent in the fourth quarter…
CBN
If the Economy Is Weak, Why are Stocks Going Up?
Bill Freeza, with the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said he expects a tough economic year. "We're not going to see the kind of growth…
LA Times
Court rules Obama’s recess picks are illegal
"We think it's likely his recess appointment is going to meet the same fate," said Sam Kazman, general counsel of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a…
Townhall
Dodd-Frank is an Unconstitutional Disaster
That law, Dodd-Frank, is being challenged in State National Bank of Big Spring v. Geithner. The lead plaintiff is a community bank that has had…
Townhall
Not All Austerity Is Equal
Prominent economists, politicians, and pundits throw around the term “austerity” as if policies by…
News Release
Obama’s Financial Nominees Send Mixed Signals
WASHINGTON, D.C., Jan. 24, 2013—Today, President Obama nominated two ex-prosecutors for key financial posts. But John Berlau, senior fellow for finance and access to…
Townhall
Why All The Green Pork In A Deal Meant To Avoid The Fiscal Cliff?
When President Obama’s autopen turned the fiscal cliff deal into law, Americans might have thought that the federal government had begun to walk down the…
Real Clear Politics
Obama Blinks: No Emperor’s New Coin
It looks like the American people have been cheated out of a precious teachable moment. Demonstrating their ability to think two moves ahead, something their…
Real Clear Politics
Something for Everybody (To Hate): Rep. Wilson’s Beach House Bailout
But the bill still has some degree of serious support. In 2007, a version actually passed the House of Representatives 286-155 with co-sponsors that included…
Financial Post
Avoiding the ‘Basel cliff’
John Berlau of the Competitive Enterprise Institute in Washington has called the global bank rules the “Basel cliff” that could decimate many U.S. banks. Banks…
News Release
Eurocrats Delay “Basel III” Albatross on U.S. Banks
WASHINGTON, D.C., January 8, 2013 – Over the weekend, a committee of international regulators and central bankers decided to slightly revise and delay the…
New York Times
Easing of Rules for Banks Acknowledges Reality
“If Basel had been implemented this year as written, it almost certainly would have thrown the U.S. and other economies into a recession more than…
Forbes
Fiscal Justice Trumps Fiscal Sanity, Progressivism Marches On
In his first New Year’s Eve address since taking office, French President François Hollande—progressive poster boy and role model for class warriors the world over—defended his…
Forbes
Happy New Year? Fiscal Cliff, Meet The Costberg
How the largest government on earth plans to expand our liberties in the new year of 2013 by forcing “the rich” to pay somebody’s idea…
News Release
Taxpayers Get Terrible Deal on GM Stock
Washington, D.C. – December 20, 2012 – John Berlau, Senior Fellow for Finance and Access to Capital, had the following to say about the…
CNN
Safety net for business bank accounts at risk
John Berlau, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, argues ending the TAG program is in the nation's best interest. He said the usefulness…
News Release
TAG Bank Bailout Fails in Senate, Taxpayers Win
Washington, D.C. – December 13, 2012 – On behalf of taxpayers and future generations burdened by the nation’s debt, the Competitive Enterprise Institute rejoices at…
Human Events
The Return of Gunboat Diplomacy
Co-authored with Riley Walters. Last September, China deployed six surveillance ships in response to the Japanese government’s attempt to buy the disputed Senkaku islands,…
Letters
Free-Market Coalition Letter Against TAG’s Unlimited Deposit Insurance
As the Senate prepares today to vote on extending unlimited deposit insurance for non-interest bank accounts, 14 leaders and scholars of conservative and free-market groups signed a…
Huffington Post
Transatlantic Free Trade Must Be Done Right
There's a buzz, says Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, in both Berlin and D.C. these days, for free trade as a potential path back to…
News Release
Coalition Tags TAG Bailout as Regressive and Economically Disastrous
Washington, DC, December 10, 2012 – As the Senate prepares today to vote on extending unlimited deposit insurance for non-interest bank accounts, 14 leaders and scholars…
National Review
Do as Reagan Did, And Free Credit Unions
In their post-mortem on the election, National Review’s editors stressed the need to “make the case that conservative policies would make the broad mass of…
Forbes
A Tax Both Ayn Rand And Ralph Nader Could Love
Here is a puzzler worth pondering as Congress scrambles to find enough tax revenue to feed its insatiable appetite for spending. Can you come up…
Letters
Coalition Letter on the Fiscal Cliff and the Taxpayer Protection Pledge
Full Document Available in PDF Dear Republican Members of Congress, We, the undersigned organizations, who represent millions of Americans dedicated to fiscal…
Forbes
Grover Norquist’s Gnomes Duke It Out With The Tax Fairness Fairy
No one seriously believes that federal spending is going to be brought under control any time soon. Regardless of what deals are cut during the…
Appeal Democrat
Taking money off the table
The range of higher taxes looming Jan. 1 as part of the "fiscal cliff" are not the only blow the economy could suffer, John Berlau…
Appeal Democrat
Opportunity And Wealth Remain In America, Not Europe
The presidential election proved Americans have embraced European-style social democracy and that ObamaCare is but the first chapter in a new era of big government.
Legal Brief
Dodd Frank Challenge – Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss
Full Document Available in PDF This lawsuit cobbles together an array of disparate challenges to the constitutionality of three titles of an…
Daily Caller
‘Basel cliff’ looms for community banks
As if the “fiscal cliff” were not enough, banks of all sizes — and in turn the consumers and businesses that rely on their credit…
Blog
The Hostess Bankruptcy And The Threat Of A PBGC Bailout
On Friday, November 16, Hostess Brands announced it was shutting down operations after the Bakers, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM), which rejected…
Letters
Coalition Letter on Unintended Consequences of Basel III
Full Document Available in PDF The undersigned organizations, institutions and nonprofits interested in fostering entrepreneurship represent hundreds of thousands businesses, small and…
Trib Live
Chrysler, Fiat deal backfires
John Berlau is the senior fellow for finance and access to capital in the Center for Economic Freedom at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington,…
NJ
Repeal of Durbin Amendment would protect consumers from annual credit card fees
A year ago, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Consumer Protection Act’s Durbin Amendment price controls went into effect, causing consumers to lose free checking and be…
Blog
Sandy Beaches, Meet Hurricane Sandy
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, many reminisce of 2005's Hurricane Katrina. With at least a dozen East Coast states in a declared state of…
The American Spectator
Dodd-Frank’s Mystery SIFI Theater
Following the financial crisis, there was a desire to protect the nation against banks becoming so large that their failure would threaten the entire financial…
Daily Caller
The Real Fiat Scandal
Cowritten by Mark Beatty. The real outrage arising from the 2009 Chrysler bailout is not that its parent company, Fiat, is planning to build…
Forbes
Paul Krugman’s Stimulus Batters The East Coast, Fueling Economic Growth
Mainstream economists, corporate executives, politicians, and pundits are still totaling up the windfall boost to the nation’s GDP, but most agree that the benefits from…
Forbes
Markets of Government: Whom Do You Trust?
Free-market advocates have the deck stacked against them in the marketplace of ideas (ironically) for a very simple reason: Markets are impersonal, intangible things, whereas…
Forbes
European Politics Increasingly Resemble Halloween
Politics in Europe is beginning to resemble Halloween. Trick-or-treaters like Greece and Spain come to the doorstep of Germany and the European Union for bailout…
Staff & Scholars
John Berlau
Senior Fellow and Director of Finance Policy
- Banking and Finance
- Deregulation
- Financial Regulation
Iain Murray
Vice President for Strategy and Senior Fellow
- Banking and Finance
- Trade and International
Steve Swedberg
Finance and Monetary Policy Analyst
- Banking and Finance
- Deregulation
- Financial Regulation