Articles are already popping up that, with a Trump presidency, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act of 2010 will be on the chopping block during his first 100 days on the job.

Dodd-Frank is already over 24,000 pages long and the Fed is feverishly writing still more pages before the new administration takes over in January.

Given other priorities—e.g., healthcare, jobs, immigration, defense, trade, veterans affairs, etc.—I don’t expect the new Trump administration to use its new political capital to repeal Dodd-Frank, especially since it would take 60 U.S. senators to vote in favor.

Keep in mind that Dodd-Frank symbolizes the relief of Main Street against the biggest banks and Wall Street. While that may have been the intent, the regulations have strangled regional and community banks while adding significant costs to all banks and that, in turn, picks the pockets of those whom the regulations were supposed to protect—the folks on Main Street.

So what should we expect?

I don’t see Dodd-Frank remaining as an open document after 2017. It would make sense that some of the current regulations be revamped so they would still support Main Street while easing up on burdensome documents currently required that apply to small business loans and personal mortgages.

There will still be a lot of regulations to digest around Dodd-Frank. We at three+one are here to help public entities, higher education institutions, and banks navigate through these challenges.

The good news is that better days are ahead for banks of all sizes and that should also be great for those of us on Main Street.

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We Hope to See You at Our Upcoming Presentation:

Northeast GFOA Holiday Seminar – December 13th in Troy, NY
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