As Senator Dodd and Senator Shelby continue to meet and search for a bipartisan financial regulatory reform bill, the Committee on Capital Markets Regulation (CCMR), an independent, non-partisan research organization and proponent of broad financial regulatory reform, has sent congressional leaders a letter outlining a blueprint for a compromise that would achieve practical and effective financial reform legislation.

In the 37-page letter the CCMR comprehensively evaluates all major elements in the financial reform proposals that have emerged from Senate committees, but focuses especially on four as areas ripe for compromise:

• “Never” is bad public policy. Federal regulators must have the ability to use tax dollars (and recoup them later) to pay for the orderly resolution of failing institutions in cases where they judge the alternative would be national and/or international financial catastrophe. However, the CCMR does not support the arbitrary $50 billion fund in the proposed Dodd bill, since no one can or should try to guess the cost of such bailouts. A better solution: give the Secretary of the Treasury the power to use public money, and then recoup funds after any needed bailout, starting first by recovering bailout funds from the creditors of the failed bank.

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