Obama's Bank Rule Faces Challenge

Sources say that Economic Recovery Advisory Board Chairman Paul Volcker’s recent proposal to limit banks’ proprietary trading will either undergo huge changes or be scrapped entirely as Democrats struggle to put together a regulatory reform bill. Politicians on both sides of the aisle believe that including the policies laid out in “the Volcker Rule” will destroy bipartisan support for financial regulatory reform, and a staffer for Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd said, “Chris is retiring so he wants to end his career with an important regulatory reform bill and he wants to make the bill bipartisan. He is not going to risk bipartisan support to make the White House happy.” Members of the Senate are also divided on whether or not such regulations actually reduce risk in the market, and as an alternative, Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia is proposing that banks invest a total of $1 trillion in infrastructure projects.