THE BEAT
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TAX BATTLE
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CBO: PPACA RULING TO CUT SPENDING BY $84 BILLION
Bill to Be Introduced Exempting Insurers
from SIFI Designation
by Aurthur D. Postal
A SENIOR REPUBLICAN
member of the House Financial Services Committee plans
to introduce legislation that
would bar federal regulators
from designating insurance
companies as systemically
significant.
Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J.,
disclosed his plans in comments at the House FSC hearing where Treasury Secretary
Timothy Geithner reported
to the committee on the first
year’s operations of the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC).
In questioning Geithner at the hear-
ing, Garrett questioned “the reasoning
behind spreading the Too-Big-To-Fail
doctrine to other parts of our financial
system.”
He asked Geithner, “Why is it a good
idea for the FSOC to designate other
firms in other parts of the financial sec-
tor as Too-Big-To-Fail as you plan to do
in the near future?”
He then asked Geithner, “Why do
we want to harden the minds of the
marketplace into believing asset man-
agement firms, insurance companies
and finance companies are Too-Big-To-
Fail?”
“Why do we want to spread the prob-
lems from the banking sector to these
new businesses where they will receive
cheaper funding in the marketplace and
be able to swallow up their less compet-
itive counterparts?” he asked Geithner.
