The U.S. Senate moved closer today to passing legislation to roll back some of the financial safeguards put in place by the passage of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Act.
The chamber voted 67-32, with 16 Democrats and one independent voting to move ahead with consideration of the bipartisan bill. That’s enough Democrats to show the bill has a good chance of winning final passage in the Republican-majority Senate.
The move to alter some key aspects of Dodd-Frank comes ten years after the financial crisis rocked the nation’s economy.
Nonpartisan congressional analysts say the legislation would slightly increase the probability of a big bank failure—prompting a possible taxpayer bailout—or another financial meltdown. The probability of those events is deemed to be small under current law. The new assessment by the Congressional Budget Office estimates the bill would increase federal deficits by $671 million between 2018 and 2027 if it became law.
