Banks to Pay for Regulation?

The Obama administration is pushing forward on overhauling financial regulation, and The Washington Post reports that they've got a novel way to pay for it: charging the financiers they want to regulate. A "two-tiered, pay-for-regulation approach" would put the financial burden for bank regulation and a new consumer-protection agency onto America's largest financiers. The plan—which Congress is expected to tackle in the fall—would force banks with more than $10 billion in assets to pay steeper regulation fees. Unregulated consumer financial firms, like mortgage lenders, would, for the first time ever, pay for oversight as well. Not surprisingly, Wall Street is mostly opposed to the plan, with industry leaders calling it "outrageous," "onerous," and a "burden."