Financial Services Report (4/19)

Near Term The House is scheduled to take up a bill, H.R. 3340 that would require the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) to be funded through the congressional appropriations process.   Speaking of spending issues, the House Financial Services Committee has a mark-up scheduled for its budget estimates.  If past precedence is prologue for future […]

Looking Ahead Near Term House and Senate are out for the Easter Recess On Tuesday Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen will deliver a speech on “Economic Outlook and Monetary Policy” at the Economic Club of New York. On Thursday, Comptroller of the Currency Thomas J. Curry is scheduled to speak at Harvard where here will […]

Our Take This week, during his Committee’s semi-annual hearing of the CFPB, House Financial Services Chairman Jeb Hensarling shared his belief that Congress had abdicated too much of its Article I authority in delegating powers to the Administration.  While he specifically was referencing CFPB Director Cordray, who he referred to as “a dictator, and not […]

Looking Ahead Near Term On Monday, President Obama will meet with the heads of the various financial regulatory bodies.  While this is the fourth meeting of these principles in the White House during the President’s two terms, and no new policy announcements are anticipated, the timing, so close to the roll out of the fiduciary […]

Looking Ahead Near Term Senate is scheduled to take up legislation to tackle the growing opioid abuse issue.  In addition, it may return the complete consideration of the Energy bill now that a deal to resolve the Flint water crisis has been reached. The House will debate a pair of bills related to Medicaid providers […]

Our Take The world lost a legal giant on Saturday and the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia threw another monkey wrench into the already frazzled gears of the 2016 Presidential campaign.  Although it would mean leaving the seat vacant for more than 11 months, Republicans, led by Senate Leader McConnell, immediately indicated their […]

Looking Ahead Near Term The President will release his budget to Congress on Tuesday and multiple hearings have already been scheduled to allow heads of Agencies and Departments to justify and defend their requests.  Fed Chair Yellen will come back to the Hill for her Semi-annual testimony on monetary policy.  With Friday’s lower than expected […]

Our Take What was supposed to be a slow start to the 2016 Congressional calendar was further delayed by a snow storm that dumped historic accumulations on our nation’s Capital causing the House to cancel work for the week and the Senate to delay votes.  While many pundits criticize members of Congress for not living […]

Looking Ahead Near Term House is in recess Senate is in session and is scheduled to take up the Syrian refugee bill before moving onto an energy bill that could be on the floor for a couple of weeks.

Our Take The First Session of the 114th came to a close last week, fittingly with the passage of the FY16 spending bill and a tax measure dealing with a series of expiring provisions, to tie a bow on a year whose schedule had been dictated by statutorily imposed deadlines.  Despite some Sturm und Drang […]

Looking Ahead Near Term Congress has till Wednesday to resolve differences over the remaining issues — ranging from Syrian refugees to oil exports — that continue to be the impediment to passing a bill to fund the government for the remainder of FY16. Debate and discussions also continue around the tax “extenders” package, including whether […]

Our Take As we start the first day of Hanukah and are well into the Christmas season, it is worth noting that we are also seeing the height of the annual kabuki ritual that is the congressional appropriations negotiation process.  For the uninitiated it goes something like this.  The majority party make their first budget […]