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Hensarling Statement on Court Striking Down ‘Too Big to Fail’ Designation for MetLife


Washington, Mar 30 -

WASHINGTON – House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) issued the following statement about today’s court ruling that struck down Washington’s attempt to designate MetLife as a “systemically important financial institution” (SIFI):

“Although I obviously wasn’t in the courtroom to hear the evidence, I am very encouraged by today’s ruling.  One of the greatest dangers facing hardworking taxpayers is the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s power to designate certain companies as so-called SIFIs, because today’s SIFI designations are just tomorrow’s taxpayer-funded bailouts.  SIFI is Washington’s way of officially anointing these companies as too big to fail, despite promises that the Dodd-Frank Act would end too big to fail.  Designation also ominously grants the Federal Reserve near de facto management authority over such institutions, thus allowing huge swaths of the economy to potentially be controlled by the federal government.

“The Financial Stability Oversight Council typifies the unfair Washington insider system that Americans have come to fear and loathe:  powerful government bureaucrats, secretive government meetings, arbitrary and capricious rules, and the power to pick winners and losers – and taxpayers always end up being the losers.

“Republicans on the House Financial Services Committee will soon introduce a plan that protects taxpayers by ending taxpayer-funded bailouts and Washington bureaucrats’ ability to anoint any business as too big to fail.”