The co-sponsor behind the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act told CNBC in an interview on Monday that the controversial law doesn’t actually restrict lending.
Barney Frank, former representative, D-Mass., and James Pethokoukis, American Enterprise Institute fellow, discussed the financial reform law given the heightened talk around the act after President Donald Trump signed an executive order last Friday to roll it back.
The two discussed in the interview, included below, how the act will take effect since Congress has to approve it, asking if the move is simply symbolic.
Pethokoukis referenced a recent comment from Gary Cohn, the White House National Economic Council Director, stating that Dodd-Frank is “crimping business lending.”
“I don’t think that’s true,” said Pethokoukis.
Frank further expanded on this saying, “There’s only one provision in the financial reform law that restricts lending, and it’s one that says please don’t lend money to poor people, or you can’t lend money to poor people, who can’t pay you back for their mortgages.”
“Literally that restriction on that predatory, irresponsible, subprime mortgages is the only lending restriction,” he said.
Watch the full interview from CNBC below: