Democrats long ago lost the messaging battle on regulations by calling them “regulations.” Every single regulation is a protection because left unimpeded, corporations will run roughshod over consumers, the environment, and anything else that stands in the way of their profits. But to put in that context, it’s a clear and easy distinction between the Democrats and Republicans: Democrats want to protect the public from the excesses of capitalism while Republicans want businesses to do whatever the f--- they want.
Simple, right? Except it’s not exactly true. Republicans are just as pro-regulation when it impacts one of their friends.
The last act of Brian Brooks, acting head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, as he headed to the exits was to finalize a rushed regulation prohibiting banks from blacklisting entire industries. Why was this important to Brooks and the GOP? Because many banks have stopped lending to gun manufacturers, the fossil fuel industry (and particularly drillers), and other icky and controversial types of business that reflect poorly on anyone doing business with them.
The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency is a regulatory agency supposed to provide oversight of the banking industry, but it really doesn’t function as such. It’s a typical example of an industry regulating itself, with Wall Street insiders running the joint to the benefit of its “clients.” Yes, clients.
It’s a remarkable turn for the OCC, which watches over JPMorgan Chase & Co., Citigroup Inc., Wells Fargo & Co. and other giant financial companies. The regulator has traditionally been seen as the most industry-friendly of the government’s watchdogs, with Brooks’s predecessor Joseph Otting often referring to banks as the OCC’s “clients.”
Banks are furious, of course. How dare a regulator regulate them! But this isn’t about the banks.
This is about it being the entire job of an agency to grease the skids for its “client” banks, and overriding their capitalistic free will by ramming through a regulation that makes a mockery of Republican orthodoxy.
It’s certainly ironic to watch the “NO REGULATIONS” crowd suddenly impose one when their friends in the energy and gun industries are affected.
It’s certainly ironic to watch the same crowd who want to refuse service to gay wedding couples suddenly get the vapors when it’s the mass-murdering gun industry in the crosshairs. Fox News had a breathless report back in July of last year on the emerging activism convincing banks to drop their gun clients.
"Financial activism by banks is by far one of the largest emerging threats against Second Amendment rights," Philip Watson, founder of Washington Public Relations and a Second Amendment advocate, told Fox News. "The federal government allows the financial industry to receive vast amounts of federal funds; however, those exact same funds free up their balance sheets enough to discriminate and play politics."
Again, refusing to sell a cake to a gay couple is fine. Refusing to serve murdering gun industry and it’s “playing politics.” And indeed, that’s the talking point Republicans have used to justify this new regulation. “Business lending decisions should be based on creditworthiness, rather than politics or political pressure,” said Republican Senate Banking Committee Chairman Mike Crapo. “I applaud Acting Comptroller Brooks.”
Yet “political pressure and politics” are very much legitimate factors in any business’ decisions. It’s called “public relations,” and consumers are allowed to make their own commerce decisions based on how their values align with the people they do business with. It’s why gun manufacturers advertise on right-wing online forums and other politically friendly forums. It’s why businesses focused on sustainability advertise where liberals congregate. It’s why even trillion-dollar companies like Apple and Microsoft make a big deal about their own sustainability efforts.
People want to feel good about the companies they do business with. And quite frankly, outside of the MAGA/Q world, people aren’t much thrilled about assault weapon manufacturers or environment-destroying frackers. Republicans don’t like that, pushing through this gross interference into the free market.
Calling Republicans “hypocrites” is rote, boring, and ineffective. They don’t give a shit. But it’s yet another reminder that they lack even the barest semblance of a cohesive ideology.
Like all regulations passed within the last six months (or so), the new Congress and administration has a chance to veto them with a simple majority vote.
The Trump administration has rushed through a flood of last-minute regulations that the new Democratic majorities fully intend to review. This may be one of them.
Beyond that, the banks will sue as the process in passing this regulation was rushed and likely flawed (remember which administration pushed it through, the most incompetent of all time). Interesting question: In that lawsuit, who would defend the regulation? The Biden administration certainly will have little interest in doing so.
So in the end, it’ll likely be all for naught—a last-minute gift to the gun and extraction industries that will end up being nothing more than a cruel mirage, as real and substantive as the GOP’s supposed fealty to “free market principles.”