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
Cato Institute
The Fate of ‘Never Needed’ Regulations
Parking lots and parking garages have served for decades as venues for clandestine meetings in the movies and often in reality. In the early 1970s,…
News Release
House poised to end Biden-era CFPB overdraft rule: CEI statement
The House is expected today to vote on a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution overturning a Biden era Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule to cap…
Issues & Insights
Reviving Community Banking By Lifting Barriers To New Banks
Americans have far fewer banks to choose from than they once did. The American banking industry has consolidated, with the number of U.S. banks falling…
Search Posts
Op-Eds
Federal Government Pushes Massive Mortgage Bailout; Would Rip off Pension Funds, Bank Shareholders
Back before the election, intellectuals with ties to the Obama Administration proposed a trillion-dollar bailout for some (but not all) underwater mortgage borrowers, as a way…
Citation
Minnesota leads charge against Durbin amendment on debit card fees in Dodd-Frank bill
Op-Eds
Are Obamacare’s health-insurance exchange requirements unconstitutional?
Usually, Congress can’t order state governments to do anything – it can only bribe them to do so, using federal grants. If it tries to…
Citation
Redefining ‘fiduciary’ could mean higher costs for 401(k)s, IRAs, experts say
Comment
CEI Led Regulatory Comment on Debit Card Interchange Fees and Routing
VIA E-MAIL TRANSMISSION [email protected] February 22, 2011 Ms. Jennifer J. Johnson, Secretary Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System 20th Street and Constitution Avenue,…
Op-Eds
George Washington Was a Brilliant Entrepreneur
February is an important month in the history of American commerce. In this month is the birthday of one of the country’s earliest business…
Op-Eds
Tobacco Tax Hike was a Backroom Deal
Every year, a massive transfer of wealth occurs across the country, between states and from smokers to state governments and wealthy trial lawyers, thanks to…
Op-Eds
Dick Durbin Is Stealing Your Free Checking!
In the battle against Obamacare, the first chinks in the law’s armor were resolutions against the law by state legislatures. These resolutions led to court…
Citation
Regulatory reform an issue of accountability
Op-Eds
Beware of Glass-Steagall
When freshman congressman and former lieutenant colonel Allen West was chosen to give the coveted keynote speech to close the Conservative Political Action Conference,…
Letters
Coalition for Competitive Insurance Rates coalition letter on Obama’s FY 2012 Budget
Full Document Available in PDF We are writing to express our concern about a proposal within…
News Release
Obama Budget Fails On Regulatory Reform
Washington, D.C., February 14, 2011 — President Barack Obama has submitted a $3.73 trillion spending budget blueprint for fiscal 2012, blowing well past President George…
Op-Eds
Obama’s Nanny-State Control of Business Will Crimp Growth
At 11:30 on Monday, in a much-anticipated speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, President Obama used analogies from the Super Bowl to urge American…
Citation
Freddie, Fannie May Be Finished, But What Comes Next?
Investors' Business Daily
Regulation Without Representation
Regulatory agencies enact more than 3,500 new regulations in an average year. A new federal rule hits the books roughly every two hours, 24…
Blog
The GOP and the Health Insurance Mandate
With the health insurance individual purchase mandate looking more vulnerable than ever, Democrats are trying desperately to get some mileage out…
Investors' Business Daily
Bulldog is still fighting
Investors' Business Daily
Liberating Credit Unions and Entrepreneurs
Now more than ever, “civility” is the rage on Capitol Hill. The civility craze may have reached its nadir with what was called “date night”…
Blog
Obamacare Struck Down by Florida Judge; Properly Applies Severability Principles to Invalidate Whole Law
A judge in Florida just declared the health care law known as “Obamacare” unconstitutional, ruling it void in its entirety. Judge Vinson rightly…
Investors' Business Daily
Is the TSA More Interested in Airport Security Or Supporting Unions?
Investors' Business Daily
No, There Was No Public Offering Made (Letter to the Editor)
In attempting to defend Massachusetts’s censorship of hedge-fund speech to the public, Mike Liles Jr. (Letters, Jan. 22) makes a circular argument that mischaracterizes my…
Investors' Business Daily
Rolling Back Red Tape: 20 Regulations to Eliminate
Investors' Business Daily
Life’s Tough for $144,000 Garbage Collectors
Study
Suspend Mark-to-Market Rules and Make Accounting Regulators Accountable
Liberate to Stimulate Index The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) was hauled before Congressional hearings and members of both parties expressed concern…
Study
Recognize the Value of Hedge Funds and Private Equity for Entrepreneurs and Shareholders
Liberate to Stimulate Index Hedge funds and private equity are vehicles for wealthy investors to take risks and potentially reap high returns.
Study
Free Smaller Companies to Go Public by Rolling Back Burdensome Sarbanes-Oxley Accounting Rules
Liberate to Stimulate Index In CEI’s last Agenda for Congress, we recommended that “smaller public companies be exempt from Sarbanes-Oxley’s Section 404.”…
Study
Encourage Credit Access Innovation
Liberate to Stimulate Index The abuses of the subprime crisis have made it all too easy to overlook the myriad…
News Release
Repeal Senseless and Job-Destroying Volcker Rule from Dodd-Frank
Contact: Christine Hall, 202-331-2258 Lee Doren, 202-331-2259 Washington, D.C., January 18, 2011 – Today, the Financial Stability Oversight Council is issuing recommendations for implementing…
Investors' Business Daily
Financial Stability Council Violates the Constitution (Letter to the Editor)
C. Boyden Gray’s Dec. 31 Washington Forum commentary, “Wall Street reform that flouts the law,” rightly criticized the secrecy, unchecked bureaucratic power and constitutional…
Investors' Business Daily
Choosing the Right State Insurance Commissioner Matters
“And what manner of man dares to assume the post of insurance commissioner?” LA Weekly columnist Hillel Aron asked recently. It is an important question…
Investors' Business Daily
Premium Power Grab: Feds Take Control of Insurance Prices
Blog
Driver Monitoring Increases Accuracy, Lowers Insurance Costs
Believe it or not, insurance companies do not want to overcharge you. They want to charge just the right amount — as little as possible…
Letters
Committee on Reduction of Nonessential Federal Expenditures
Full Document Available in PDF On behalf of the millions of taxpayers represented by our organizations, we write…
Investors' Business Daily
Debit Card Restrictions Bad News for Consumers
Study
Phase Out the National Flood Insurance Program
Full Document Available in PDF Since it emerged in its current form…
Study
Liberalize Homeowners, Automobile, Life, and Commercial Insurance Regulation
Full Document Available in PDF A confusing patchwork of state-level…
Study
Develop Smart Policies to Help Homeowners Deal With Natural Catastrophes
Full Document Available in PDF Natural catastrophes such as…
Investors' Business Daily
Future FSA, HRA charges to fund ObamaCare
Investors' Business Daily
Obama’s GM Numbers Are Not Adding Up
News Release
Federal Reserve’s Interchange Price Controls: Gift to Retailers, Lump of Coal for Consumers
Washington, D.C., December 16, 2010 – This afternoon in a public meeting, the Federal Reserve will release draft rules to implement Dodd-Frank’s Durbin Amendment, which…
Investors' Business Daily
Judge Should Have Struck Down Entire Law (Letter to the Editor)
This editorial about a federal judge striking down Obamacare’s individual insurance-purchase mandate rightly noted that the law lacks a severability clause. Because of…
Study
Roll Back Burdensome Sarbanes-Oxley Accounting Rules
Full Document Available in PDF “How can we have these levels of fictions…
Investors' Business Daily
Feds Use New Tool to Target Ex-CEO
Blog
Why Insurance Rates Rise in Calm Seasons
This year’s hurricane season, which officially ended at the beginning of this month, was the third most active season on record for the Atlantic. However,…
Letters
Coaliton Letter on Credit Union Regulatory Relief
Full Document Available in PDF Along with this letter please find a new advertisement, signed…
Investors' Business Daily
GM Shares Are Artificially Inflated (Letter to the Editor)
The Examiner was right to note that General Motors’ supposed “success story” is actually a money-loser for taxpayers. Not only did GM’s recent sale of…
Investors' Business Daily
What’s Good for New GM Is Bad for the Rest of America
Investors' Business Daily
GM’s Stock Offering Goes Well, But Some See Nothing to Cheer
Investors' Business Daily
Halfway Between Sanity and Bedlam
Investors' Business Daily
What’s Good for GM Is Now Terrible for America
Investors' Business Daily
What’s Good for GM Is Now Terrible for America
In his 1953 confirmation hearing for Secretary of Defense in the incoming Eisenhower administration, former General Motors CEO Charles “Engine Charlie” Wilson was asked how…
Investors' Business Daily
Wall Street to GM: Let’s Put Those Bad Days Behind Us
News Release
Small Businesses Not Growing? That’s Because Regulations Are
The U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship will hold a hearing Thursday, November 18, on “Assessing the Regulatory and Administrative Burdens on…
Associated Content
National Deficit Commission: Eliminate Commercial Space Subsidies
NCPA
The Problem with Public-Private Partnerships
NCPA
The Election’s Over, So Let’s Get Back to Business
President Obama recently warned that the current high unemployment could be “a new normal” in the United States. If his administration doesn’t change course…
Study
Business Must Fight for Economic Freedom
Business Must Fight for Economic Freedom Fred L. Smith, Jr. President, Competitive Enterprise Institute Written Remarks For the…
Blog
Beach House Bummer: State-Run Insurance Fuels Risky Coastal Development
Wouldn’t we all like to have a beach house? A large number of Americans have a dream of living near the sea, but few of…
Blog
Hospital Cost-Shifting Leads to More Expensive Car Insurance
Lawmakers’ policies are making your car insurance higher than it should be. Rather than solving the problems that government intervention is causing, however, politicians would…
NCPA
Fannie & Freddie Don’t Deserve Any More Tax Dollars (Letters to the Editor)
The Examiner was right to oppose more taxpayer bailouts for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which are expected to receive between $73 billion and $215…
NCPA
Morning Scan – Free Checking
NCPA
The Free Checking Restoration Act
Having largely abandoned attempts to defend ObamaCare in the run-up to next week’s election, President Obama and his allies are now warning that opponents will…
Blog
Insurance Lessons from Alabama
While Alabama certainly has some ambiguous laws and archaic regulations, the federal government ought to take a lesson from Alabama when it comes…
NCPA
Free Checking – How ‘Bout Them Democrats
NCPA
SEC ‘Proxy Access’ Rule Could Empower Unions, Political Activists
NCPA
Obama’s War on Free Checking
“Free checking as we know it is ending,” says the lead paragraph of a widely read and tweeted story from The Associated Press. Noting…
Study
Reforming Michigan’s Auto Insurance Industry
Michigan auto insurance premiums are among the highest in the nation. Rather than attempting to regulate insurance company and individual behavior, Michigan legislators would much…
Insider Online
Reforming Michigan’s Auto Insurance Industry: Some Concrete and Practical Proposals
Insider Online
The Free Checking Restoration Act of 2010
MacLeans
Burning Down the House
MacLeans discusses Iain Murray's article for the Washington Examiner on private insurance companies. That could be why the fire incident, far from discouraging…
MacLeans
The GM IPO
Blog
Obamacare Results in 47 Percent Premium Hike
Obamacare has just led to a 47 percent increase in some health insurance premium rates in Connecticut: The state’s largest insurer has been approved to…
Blog
Judge Rejects Obama Administration’s Motion to Dismiss Challenge to Obamacare
A judge in Florida has rejected the Obama administration’s motion to dismiss challenges to Obamacare brought by 20 state attorneys general and the…
MacLeans
New Obama healthcare plan relies on imaginary savings, costs $2 trillion, explodes budget deficits
MacLeans
Ms. Warren Should Take Aim at Confusing Federal Laws (Letters to the Editor)
Todd Zywicki is right to criticize President Obama for appointing a consumer-lending czar without submitting the appointment to the Senate for an up-or-down vote…
Reason
Let it Burn or Not? Fulton Fire Department Follow-up: Updated with Mangu-Ward Video!
Reason discusses Iain Murray's Washington Examiner article on insurance companies. For some counter-perspective, here is Iain Murray of the Competitive Enterprise Institute writing…
Blog
If You Like Your Health Plan, You May Lose It Anyway
Another major employer, 3M, has decided to “eventually stop offering its health insurance plan to retirees, citing the federal health overhaul as a factor.”…
Blog
Obamacare May Force McDonald’s to Drop Health Coverage for Employees
Michelle Malkin points out that “McDonald’s has notified the feds that it may be forced to drop health insurance for some 30,000 workers due…
Reason
Fish Enough for All
Ron Arnold alleged yesterday that Jane Lubchenco and the bureaucrats at NOAA are killing the New England fishing industry. Averse as I am to…
Reason
SEC “Proxy Access” Rule Could Empower Unions, Political Activists and Undermine Investors
Reason
Washington Ideas Forum
Study
Free Enterprise Fund v. PCAOB: Narrow Separation-of-Powers Ruling Illustrates That the Supreme Court Is Not ‘‘Pro-Business’’
Full Document Available in PDF Chief Justice John Roberts has often been depicted as an advocate of narrow rulings and a judicial philosophy…
Blog
22,000 Lose Their Health Insurance Due to Obamacare
Approximately 22,000 senior citizens just lost their health plan with Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, which dropped its Medicare Advantage Program due to “cuts in…
Reason
Pledge Takes On Overregulation
Though much of the commentary on the GOP’s “Pledge to America” has forcused on the areas of taxes and spending, the provision that may contain…
Newsletter
CEI Weekly: Congress Should Liberate to Stimulate
CEI Weekly is a compilation of articles and blogs from CEI's staff. This week features John Berlau's debate with Heather Boushey from the Center for…
Reason
No Regulation Without Representation
Having excoriated the Bush administration and Republicans in Congress — on this site and elsewhere — for falling short of principles on TARP…
Blog
Insurers Drop Children’s Health Insurance Due to Obamacare
Insurers have stopped writing children-only health insurance policies due to mandates in Obamacare that ignored basic principles of economics. So if…
Blog
Insurance Regulators Approve Increases Based on Obamacare
In Connecticut, insurance rate regulators have approved hikes in insurance premiums of up to 20 percent, agreeing with insurers that…
Reason
Galoots!
Reason
Wayne Crews on the Regulatory State
Vice President for Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute discusses the regulatory state. He advocates removing regulations that cost the taxpayers too much money.
Reason
Sen. Baucus Pushes Small Business Jobs Act
Reason
CEI: Small Business Jobs & Credit Act – another ‘Big Government boondoggle’
Reason
How Regulations Accumulate as a Small Business Grows
The Senate votes this week on a small business tax-break bill which also contains controversial provisions to boost community-bank loans to small business. That is,…
Blog
Obama to Insurers: Stop Telling the Truth
During the fight for health insurance reform earlier this year, opponents of the bill (aka Obamacare) claimed that the proposal would increase the cost of…
Reason
A Real Small Business Assist
In his 45-minute lecture/speech in Cleveland last week — which mostly consisted of blaming his predecessors for the state of the economy and…
Reason
MBL featured in Spectator, Gazette over weekend
Products
Tightening Credit Hurts Small Businesses
The Sept. 1 editorial “On better terms” conceded that overall interest rates have risen on credit cards after the passage of the Credit CARD…
Reason
Credit Card Regulation: Big Government vs. Small Business
Reason
Tightening Credit Hurts Small Businesses
The Sept. 1 editorial “On better terms” conceded that overall interest rates have risen on credit cards after the passage of the Credit…
Reason
CBO Says Stimulus Will Increase Deficit (Letter to the Editor)
In his Commentary column, “The Recovery Act Worked,” Michael Cassidy wrongly denies that the $800 billion stimulus package “will make the federal deficit worse.” It…
