GOP bill would abolish Dodd-Frank ‘too big to fail’ provision

Republicans have introduced legislation to create a new specialized bankruptcy chapter for financial corporations and abolish the five-year-old “too big to fail” taxpayer-funded bailout.

The Taxpayer Protection and Responsible Resolution Act, unveiled by Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) on Tuesday, comes on the fifth anniversary of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act.

{mosads}The bill, backed by Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.), would eliminate Title II, the “orderly liquidation authority” provision of the Dodd-Frank Act, which provides a process through which financial corporations that are close to failing can quickly liquidate assets. In its place, the legislation would create a special bankruptcy chapter, known as Chapter 14.

Under Chapter 14, the failed bank would go bankrupt, leaving its owners and unsecured creditors on the hook.

“The only way to appropriately mark the fifth anniversary of Dodd-Frank is by repealing the most egregious portions of the bill and replacing them with a solution that ends ‘too big to fail’ once and for all,” Cornyn said in a news release. “This legislation abolishes Dodd-Frank’s bailout authority and replaces it with an orderly bankruptcy process that imposes losses on banks — not taxpayers.”

The bailout process was created to help financial corporations that were struggling in the late 2000s and considered so big that their failure would seriously damage the U.S. economy.