Breitbart: Treasury, key lawmaker differ on risk overseer

WASHINGTON (AP), 6/5/2009 - The Obama administration and House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank are at odds over how the government can best spot potential institutional meltdowns that could spread and put the nation's financial system at risk. ∴ The differences between Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Frank, a key and influential congressional voice on banking, come as the administration prepares to send Congress a package of proposed regulatory changes designed to avert the crisis that struck the financial sector last year. ∴ Frank is promoting a plan to create a council of regulators, chaired by the Federal Reserve, that would identify financial behavior that could have negative systemwide consequences and would require institutions to reduce their level of risk, according to people who have been briefed on Frank's thinking. ∴ Geithner and the Federal Reserve have been pushing for the Federal Reserve to be the sole authority overseeing so-called systemic risk. But many lawmakers and some regulators believe such exclusive power would undermine other agencies that watch over financial institutions and give too much authority to the independent central bank. Read more at Breitbart...